The public sector fraternity in the Capital has largely welcomed the Union Budget presented on Thursday in view of its encouragement to manufacturing, power and infrastructure development. Public sector professionals feel that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has envisaged a long-term economic growth in his Budget proposals.
At a post-Budget seminar on “Implications of Union Budget-2014” here on Friday, Standing Conference of Public Enterprises (SCOPE) Director-General U. D. Choubey said Mr. Jaitley had taken the budgetary vision beyond short-term growth, which was the “most common practice” in political economy.
Referring to the public-private partnership model, Dr. Choubey called for retrospection of the earlier practices. “Over and above developing 100 smart cities, there is need to develop at least 10,000 smart villages to improve the rural economy,” he said.
For meeting the deficit target of 4.1 per cent, Dr. Choubey said all other options rather than disinvestment of public sector undertakings should be explored by way of improving productivity and overall governance.
Others who addressed the seminar included management guru M. B. Athreya, Cement Corporation of India Chairman and Managing Director R. P. Tak and National Institute of Public Finance Policy's Professor N. R. Bhanumurthy.
Dr. Athreya said the public sector enterprises at the top level should go into implications of the Budget for their respective companies and gear up for improving productivity. Dr. Bhanumurthy was optimistic about achieving 6.2 per cent growth rate, for which he said the governance and delivery system must be improved.
Mr. Tak felt that the Union Budget was “balanced and growth-oriented” and the Finance Minister had touched all areas while making efforts towards sustainable growth.
