Post Budget Reaction by FOPSIA

Ludhiana, February 29, 2016: Reacting to Union Budget (2016-17) FOPSIA president Badish Jindal said:
Union Budget 2016-17 is once again a dumb squid and direction less budget.
The FM (Finance Minister) didn’t even discuss about the GST in the whole budget speech and the MSME sector once again fully ignored by the FM.
Due to recession and dipping exports the industry was expecting a relief whereas the government increased the target of income tax by 20% and central excise by 40%.
In coming years the increase in target of revenues may harass the industry as the target of Income Tax increased by 20% from 2.99 Lac Crores (revised target of 2015-16) to 3.53 Lac crores.
Similarly the Central Excise target increased by 40% from 2.29 Lac crores to 3.18 Lac crores.
The ministry of MSME once again ignored with merely a grant of 3464 crores whereas the ministries with the smaller profiles such as social welfare were allocated 7350 Crores and ministry of agriculture by 44485 Crores..
The slogan of skill development is also directionless with a budgetary grant of 1770 crores with a target of opening of 1500 new high quality institutes with merely 1.1 crores skilling target of 76 Lakh youths with a budget of 2236 Rs per person.
FOPSIA condemns the imposition of new excise duty of 2% on branded garments above 1000 Rs and 1% on jewelry
We condemns the infrastructure cess on vehicles from 1% to 4%
FOPSIA condemns the change in export duty of iron ore from 30% to Nil, this will increase the export of iron ore and will increase the domestic steel prices.
The increase in Custom duty on aluminum from 5 to 7.5% and zinc by 5 to 7.5% will increase the input cost of the industry.
We condemn the increase in Custom duty on capital goods from 7.5% to 10%.
Cess on Coal of Rs 400 Per ton wil increase the prices of power.
The creation of ARC”s (Asset Reconstruction companies) can be risky in India and may lead to big frauds.
The recapitalization fund of 25000 crores is too short for helping the banks against their expected NPA’s of more than 10Lac crores.
The FM is lying on the PMMY (Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojna) as claiming that 2.5 crore persons availed the fund of 1 Lac crores.
So we strongly condemn this budget as this budget has given no hope to the industry.