Chennai: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be presenting the nation’s union budget tomorrow, and opinions are awash with what should be and could be done.
Industry heads are speaking out their expectations ahead of the budget. Here is the compilation of such expectations.
Sahil Gilani, director – Sales & Marketing, Gits Food, said, “Consumer spending is tight and liquidity is a serious concern. Effects were first seen on discretionary spends but consumers are now feeling the pinch even on regular daily needs. Our strategy to combat this has been to launch products at lower price points. While GST has been a boon for ease of doing business, certain packaged foods are in a GST slab too high. We hope the government takes required measures to resolve these issues and get consumer spending back on track.”
On the other hand, Equitas Small Finance Bank wants the Narendra Modi-led government to concentrate on budget around reforms. PN Vasudevan, CEO and MD, of the SFB, said, “With a second term through a resounding mandate, we expect the Modi government to focus the budget around reforms that will be critical to drive long term economic growth. Land reforms, micro housing development, rural town development projects and special sops for agri and allied industries are some of the key areas we expect will give new impetus to the budget. We also expect the budget to provide, the much anticipated tax relief through changes in personal income tax for the middle income household to perk up consumption.”
Connectivity solutions provider Alogic in its pre-budget quote, said the government should boost development of products in India.
Suresh Balaji, country manager at Alogic, said, “We expect the government to boost the development of products in India, which can be realised through addressing the issues plaguing the R&D activities of the companies in India. Government needs to provide incentives to encourage skill development in the IT and peripherals sector. The IT peripheral sector needs a boost from the government to drive large scale investments, become a prominent employment generator and have steady growth. The Indian manufacturing industry has witnessed rapid growth with initiatives like ‘Make in India’ and through the digital push by the government. We expect the government to provide relaxation through ‘Ease of Doing Business’ regulations, which will in turn transform the country into a global manufacturing hub and provide opportunities to computer IT and peripheral companies to scale up their operations and become a hub for technological innovation in the world.”