Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday presented the maiden budget of Narendra Modi 2.0 government in Lok Sabha.
Here are the industry reactions to the Budget 2019:
The expectations from the budget were that of a bold reformist budget. However, it turned out to be an incremental budget at best, said Chairman of Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Satish Reddy . While welcoming the emphasis on start-ups and education sector as a good move, he said there, however, was nothing to fuel growth in the healthcare and pharma sectors, which was disappointing.
“I was particularly keen on seeing a change in the weighted deduction for R&D which did not happen. A positive policy move of this kind would have spurred R&D and innovation in pharma and other sectors,” he said.
Ramesh Nair, CEO & Country Head, JLL India:
Budget 2019 has proposed to bring in a Model Tenancy Law. This will be finalised and circulated to the states. Archaic rental laws in the country so far have proved disadvantageous for both, tenants and landlords. The new rental act will bring the required institutional framework in the country and make it more organised and fair for landlords and tenants.
Kunal Wadhwa, Partner – Indirect Taxes, PwC :
"GST amongst key structural reforms in the last 5 years to bring India to $3 trillion economy. Clearly GST has included various businesses under the formal economy and would continue to support the country's economy to grow and reach the $5 trillion target for the economy."
Mr. Wadhwa also said, "Legacy dispute resolution scheme under indirect tax is a big move to clear the pending backlog of indirect tax disputes under the central laws covering central excise duty and service tax giving immediate revenue to the government."
Milind Kothari, Managing Partner, BDO India, Partner & Head, Tax & Regulatory Services:
"The proposal to let FIIs and FPIs to invest in debt securities issued by NBFC, would provide a much needed boost of capital to a sector now starving of capital; an important prop to several sectors, particularly, real estate and automobile which are reeling for lack of finance to purchasers/buyers."
Nitesh Mehta, Partner/ Transaction Tax, Tax & Regulatory Services, BDO India:
"The FM announced that SEBI will mull increasing minimum public shareholding from 25% to 35%. Implementation of this idea would require promoters to reduce their stake in a time bound manner and for this purpose, having a good primary market and conducive secondary market would be essential."
He added, "It would be interesting to see the extent and form of relaxation that is announced to local sourcing norms in relation to FDI in single brand retail. This relaxation would certainly encourage more foreign players to explore setting up stores in India."
Abhishek Jain, Tax Partner, Ernst and Young:
"The budget from an indirect tax perspective was mostly aligned to the Government's Make in India, cleaner India and ease of business agenda. Proposal of Legacy Dispute Resolution Scheme was much sought for by industry players as most of them wanted to settle litigations of the past after stepping into the new tax era. Also, rate rationalizations for strategic goods like defence equipment, etc are welcome for the nation as a whole."
Jiger Saiya, Partner, Tax & Regulatory Services, BDO India:
"Government's guarantee provision to PSU banks for purchase of high rated pooled assets of financially sound NBFCs will be a boost for NBFCs, currently reeling under bad loan pressure."
Harry Parikh, associate partner, transaction tax, tax & regulatory Services at BDO India:
"FM's assurance in the Budget to merge NRI and FPI (foreign portfolio investor) routes for investing in India to increase NRI funding in the country."
COMMents
SHARE