If finance minister Arun Jaitley’s Budget next month is to clearly reflect Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision, then India Inc. may be surprised to find the Budget giving a major push to the small and medium sectors, the backbone of manufacturing and exports, and doing away with a number of sops.
Successive Budgets have foregone revenue amounting to Rs 5 lakh crore that benefited India Inc. primarily, despite huge deficits. Mr Modi had talked of doing away with sops and subsidies at all levels, and Mr Jaitley’s emphasis on measures to be taken to improve ease of doing business indicates that if the government is able to make it easy for business to do business, then they would not need sops.
Of course, this includes curbing corruption, without which nothing will work. Mr Jaitley has, by not extending further the excise concessions to the auto and electronics industries, sent signals that he is not for molly-coddling industry at the cost of the economy.
Industry has rightly voiced concerns about tax men being indiscriminate and harsh with their fraternity in trying to meet targets. It is hoped Mr Jaitley will look into this.
Industry’s wish list is the usual request for incentives to kick-start investment, encourage investment in infrastructure funds and trusts, fast-track clearance of stalled projects, sell off sick PSUs and cut government stake in PSU banks.
For once one wishes that India Inc. would have told the minister what they would do to revive the economy with a time-bound target and then asked Mr Jaitley to put genuine sops and processes in place.
