Industries in the State are expecting that the Union Budget will spell out measures to revive the slowing economy and rejig personal income tax rates.
Southern India Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SICCI) president R. Ganapathi suggested a revised tax slab where income of up to ₹5 lakh would be exempt and income above ₹20 lakh taxed at 30% when compared to the above ₹10 lakh threshold now.
“Another important issue is to create rural demand. SICCI feels the government has to give equal attention to the rural sector which is very much under stress and grew at the low rate of 2% in the last quarter,” he added.
Mr. Ganapathi said giving a boost to the manufacturing sector through corporate tax cut, the task remains to revitalise the rural sector and the government’s help is needed to create non-farm employment by facilitating food processing and other allied industries and more money is needed to revive the farmers’ demand.
Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) president Ramkumar Ramamoorthy expects the budget to focus on four key areas to turn the economy around, spur growth and drive employment by enabling private sector investments, increasing government spending, facilitating increased exports and increasing savings rate.
“Key to enabling private sector investment is to improve credit availability both for large and small borrowers. MCCI recommends creating specialised term lending institutions for project financing, setting up of a credit guarantee corporation for providing credit enhancement and credit insurance, increasing the scope of Credit Guarantee Scheme to cover all scheduled banks and systemically important NBFCs which will help lending to MSMEs,” he added.
P. Srinivasavaradhan, president, TVS Srichakra Ltd., pointed out that reviving the rural economy could help tackle the current slowdown.
“While the government is taking steps to improve supply of goods and services, we expect the government to take steps to increase the demand by making more liquidity portion available in the hands of consumers,” he added.
P.R. Aqeel Ahmed, Chairman, Council for Leather Exports, expects duty exemption on PU leather which is a basic raw material for producing non–leather footwear, which currently attracts 20% duty.
