The budget seeks to establish India as a manufacturing hub for India and exports, getting positioned for the green transition
New Delhi : Describing the Union Budget for 2024-25 as an affirmation of strong intent to leverage India’s demographic dividend and entrepreneurial spirit, ASSOCHAM today complimented Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for directing national resources towards generating quality jobs, giving a boost to manufacturing and a five-year commitment toward capital expenditure while balancing fiscal prudence.
“This is a Bold budget by the government keeping in view longer-term fiscal prudence. With no easy giveaways, it focuses on a longer, more sustainable path of job creation through manufacturing in the country and a strengthened role of the MSMEs. Skilling the youth, formalising job creation, continuing infrastructure spending, and urban development, along with the climate of enhanced local capex spending, will encourage the private sector to join in, given under levered balance sheets. This is a longer, more sure way to enhance employment and sustainable consumption.
The key to unlocking the full potential will be execution on the ground and simplification of a plethora of taxes and compliances, as promised. Fiscal consolidation is a great signal to foreign and local investors and, hopefully, a more robust local bond market, crowding in private savings and improving the rate structure. Abolishing the angel tax is a much-welcome move, addressing a long-standing demand by the startup segment. The government continues to work towards improving ease of doing business by measures such as decriminalising several legal provisions would further infuse confidence.” ASSOCHAM President Mr Sanjay Nayar said.
He added that there would be a huge multiplier effect of an annual capex of over Rs 11.1 lakh crore for this year, which is expected to be scaled up in subsequent years. The MSME segment was looking forward to further support, and the budget rightly delivered, providing them with a fillip through several schemes like extending collateral-free credit for the purchase of machinery and asking public sector banks to develop in-house capacity for lending to the MSMEs.
ASSOCHAM Secretary General Deepak Sood said, ” It is a Budget that lays the roadmap for making India a global hub across value chains. Measures like skilling , incentives to domestic value addition, critical mineral mission along with tax reforms and easing of FDI rules would make India amongst the preferred destinations for investors”. He said the announcement of a comprehensive review of the Income Tax Act aimed at easy tax administration and compliance would enlarge the tax base.
He also said the glide path of fiscal prudence is visible in the form of a fiscal deficit at 4.9 per cent of GDP for the current fiscal year and a promise to further bring it down to 4.5 per cent next year. ”The fiscal discipline would go down very well with global financial markets, willing to leverage the India opportunity”.
ASSOCHAM welcomed the reiteration of the next-generation reforms, including those related to labour and land, stating collaboration between the centre and states will be critical to achieving the goal of Viksit Bharat by 2047.
