The Interim Budget is Direction less and have nothing for the manufacturing sector

The Author, Badish K. Jindal. The Interim Budget is Direction less and have nothing for the manufacturing sector, The Finance Minister gave the data of Agriculture, Banking & Power but said nothing about the Manufacturing sector which was a...

The Interim Budget is Direction less and have nothing for the manufacturing sector

The Author, Badish K. Jindal.

The Interim Budget is Direction less and have nothing for the manufacturing sector, The Finance Minister gave the data of Agriculture, Banking & Power but said nothing about the Manufacturing sector which was a tact of hiding the figures of declining growth in this sector .
The inflated revenuw Figure shown in Budget Clearly proves that the budget is made in hurry just for the purpose of announcing.
The Finance Minister accepted that India's estimated growth rate is 4.9% which is much below China @ 7.7%. Even the figure of 4.9% is in genuine if we consider the high inflation rate.
The Budget is also directionless where even after the lowering down of growth rate the income targets are set high.
The Net Revenue Receipt target for 2014-15 has kept very high on 1167131 Crores against the current year target of 1056331 Crores and a revised target of 1029252 Crores, which is around 13% higher then the revised estimates for 2013-14
For Income tax the govt set a target for 2014-15 at 306466 Crores against the target 2013-14 of 247639 Crores and revised estimate of 241691 Crores. which is around 25% more than the Current year Estimate and revised estimate. which is very much irrational. This will result into the harassment by income tax officials for completing their goals.   
Similarly for Central Excise the target has set on 200585 Crores against the revised estimates of 2013-14 at 179538 crores which is again around 12% more than the last year revised targets, the Govt has announced the excise duty sops to the Auto Companies, Capital Goods but even after that keeping such a high Central Excise Revenue target is uncalled for, similar  to Income tax department the Central Excise department will harass the Industries for achieving such huge targets.   
The Service Tax revenue target kept at 215478 Crores against 2013-14 target of 164927 crores which is also irrational.
The Government has announced an increase in 10% increase in agriculture advances form Banks from 7.35 Lac crores to 8 Lac crores, but about Industry budget is very much silent.
A few sops given to auto sector & capital goods wont bring much change in slowing down market.
The Industry was expecting any time frame announcement of Direct Tax Code and GST which was absent in Budget.
The Income Tax slabs were must to be revised which remained unchanged even after the highest inflation rate of 10% for almost the whole year.
The Industry was also expecting some enhancement in Import duties or revision is SAFTA formats which was fully ignored. The result will be that for next year also we have been set free to become the soft target of Chinese imports.
The Industry was also expecting some excise duty cut in manufacturing items such as iron & steel which was fully missing.
The fiscal deficit figure announced is very ungenuine @ 4.6% whereas after the exact income figures this may cross more than 6%.
So overall this budget is directionless and has nothing which could enhance the growth of Industry in India,
(The Author is National President, Federation of Associations of Small Industries of India, FASII)
 

Date: 
Monday, February 17, 2014