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Industry disappointed by and large

B. Muthuraman

KOLKATA: The 2008-09 Central Budget has disappointed the industry with many feeling that political expediency has been the hallmark of this budget.

Senior industrialist Basant Kumar Birla, Chairman of group companies like Kesoram, Century and Jayshree Tea, told The Hindu that while the budget was “alright on the whole, it did disappoint the industry which had some expectations on the corporate tax rates which was expected to be reduced by two per cent”. The increase in excise on cement would also affect the bottomline of several cement companies within the group, he said. His group has six plants under Kesoram and Century which is targeting an output of about 14 million tonnes this year.

Tata Steel Managing Director, B. Muthuraman, said the budget would have got better ratings if it had more focus on the infrastructure front. He also said that he had expected relief from the surcharge and reduction in fringe benefit tax. Reacting to the Finance Minister’s description of the Indian steel industry as an oligopolistic one, he said the size of each player in India was heavily sub-optimal now and the government needed to remove existing hurdles to boost new investments.

Rakesh Shah, Chairman, Engineering Export Promotion Council, said the budget carried no major policy initiatives to address the sharp slowing down of exports. “The budget has completely bypassed the urgent requirement of engineering exporters”, he said.

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