Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Budget 2021 putting impetus on infrastructure led growth and support to agriculture, MSMEs and export promotion.
The Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has given impetus to a large spending on healthcare, infrastructure and export promotion.
MSME Industry experts and players have welcomed several of her announcements made today in the Loksabha.
Sam Cherian, Founder & MD at Schevaran Laboratories said, “The Union Budget announced today comes as a structural reset for the Indian economy post the pandemic aftermath. The focus on key pillars- from agriculture to infrastructure to healthcare and digital & financial inclusion is overwhelming. In her budget 3.0, the Hon’ble Finance Minister pointed out that the manufacturing sector has to grow in double digits on a sustained basis for India to touch Rs 5 trillion economy.”
The Government has also focused on strengthening the infrastructure across agriculture, railways, real estate, affordable housing by providing dedicated incentives and tax holidays in some cases.
Satish Kumar Agarwal, Chairman and MD at Kamdhenu Group says, “We are quite positive on the future with the government very bullish and focused on building infrastructure in the country in various areas – agriculture, railways, health, roads, housing and affordable housing, etc. So overall there is expected to be a lot of infrastructure building activities in the coming future and all that would need our products including paints. The recovery of our economy will be construction and capex led and we are well prepared to play our role.”
Beyond infrastructure the government has also gone for asset monetization to bring in foreign funds and create a base for long term economic growth.
“Budget and allocation on infrastructure, leveraging private investments and focus on the social sector is most promising. It all reinforces India’s positioning as a leading destination for Investments. Specific announcements on asset monetization, decriminalization of offenses and focus on transport will improve India’s competitiveness. Challenges will remain with respect to the capacity of the public sector to implement the intent in a time-bound manner,” says Nilaya Varma, CEO & Co-Founder, Primus Partners.
On the compliance front, Nadia Sood, Co-founder & CEO at CreditEnable adds, “The reduction of paid-up capital requirements for businesses to incorporate, the ability of non-resident Indians to incorporate all are good steps forward for India to improve its start-up scene.”
However, Sood is keenly waiting to see how the deployment of the additional Rs 15,700 cr. is deployed to ensure existing MSMEs which make up the largest contribution of India’s GDP are supported to recover from COVID.
She added, “Particularly in terms of financial infrastructure: the rapid implementation of OCEN will be critical to India’s recovery which will also depend on MSMEs are able to secure debt quickly and at reasonable rates.”
