Union Budget 2017-18 reactions from various sectors

Logistics industry:

Anjani Mandal, CEO and co-founder, Fortigo Network:

“The continuing growth and stability in the economy as reflected by the positive macroeconomic indicators will get a further boost with the infusion of capital in infrastructure, boosting MSMEs post-tax profits (owing to the reduced Income Tax) as well as increased liquidity with the consumer for his spends (owing to reduced Income Tax).

As to the Road Transportation industry, with the growth in economy, any facet of infrastructure development or investment by businesses or an increase in consumption, boosts Logistics sector growth.

There is no negative element for the Logistics segment and several positives to directly and indirectly boost the Logistics sector through, (a) higher outlay on Highways; (b) support for MSMEs through a reduced income tax and (c) boosting money in hands of individuals through lower income tax will boost consumption.

In addition to the above support to the overall Logistics segment, three factors are positive news for a start-up like Fortigo Network: (a) getting a wider set of businesses to move into the organized sector; (b) the continued focus on encouraging digital payments and support to infrastructure for build-up of digital payments and (c) GST to be implemented in the current year.”

2. Startups and ecommerce:

Sumit Khandelwal, Co- Founder, Xoxoday

No major change impacting our business or companies in similar domain have come in. The indirect taxes have seen no major change. Initiatives have been taken to reduce cash transaction, increase the number of tax payers etc. This will overall take the plans of reducing the cash transaction and make the business more digital. Overall I appreciate the thrust done towards digitizing the economy. The rewards of this will come in next few years than immediately

3. Education

Mr. S. Vaitheeswaran, The CEO and MD of Manipal Global Education

Explaining the impact of 2017-2018 budget decisions on the education sector, S. Vaitheeswaran, MD and CEO of Manipal Global Education Services said “Restructuring of the UGC, increased emphasis on digital learning and skills are all welcome measures to increase both Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) and employability of our graduates. Sankalp, a market-oriented training program for the youth will give a further boost to the employment situation In India. The key to real growth lies in the implementation and simplification of the procedures and approval processes. The government must look towards implementing the public-private partnership (PPP) model for attaining the end results.”

Sanjay Padode, Secretary, CDE, IFIM Business School

“The budget focussed on firing up the economy by increasing the spending power of the population and by creating employment opportunities for the masses through infrastructure spends. This time the budget did take into cognizance the need for educational reforms and it was nice to hear that the government is soon going to come out with reforms in UGC. The allocated spends for education were enhanced by 9% when compared to last year, however this spend is not going to be enough to meet the educational needs of the country. The government on the other hand has once again focussed significantly on enhancing skills, this implies that they are more concerned with employability of our large youth base an this is definitely a step in the right direction.

The mention of “Swayam” project for providing access to 350 courses delivered by the best faculty in the country for the masses clearly implies that the Government is keen to leverage use of technology to address the education needs of the country.

The mention of grant of autonomy to accredited and ranked colleges is a welcome move as it will bring relief to quality educational institutions from administrative and procedural work. This will also help them innovate and make their respective curriculums relevant to the needs of the society”.

4. Human Resource

S Subramanyam, CEO of Ascent HR

Appears more a balancing act with thrust towards achieving tax compliance, increased tax revenue based on such tax compliance together with GST reforms and hopefully a digital economy. One major announcement on spend in rural infrastructure , increased allocation in MNREGA with a promise to double farmer incomes could create jobs in rural area and drive industries based on agriculture, food processing FMCG. Direct tax reduction at the lowest slab is more a populist measure while the tax rate reduction for MSME would be a big boost in profitability and competitiveness in that sector.

Priya Krishnan, Founder and CEO, Founding Years Learning Solutions

The increase in budgetary allocations for women and childcare programs to Rs 1.86 lakh crore is a welcome move but efforts need to go into ensuring that the increase has a measurable output.In particular, the massive increase in the government's Maternity Benefit programme from Rs 400 crore to Rs 21,000 crore is something that was much-needed and reflects on the acknowledgement of the current problems at hand and the government's desire to address them.

5. Manufactoring sector

K. Madhavan, MD, Peps Industries Pvt Ltd.

“The only highlight in the budget is the reduction of income tax for the Micro and Medium manufacturing industry. This will increase the capability of companies to work successfully- a good sign of encouragement and it is welcomed. The previous budget had offered customs excise sops, so there wasn’t much of an expectation there. When GST is implemented, there would be more clarity on this, and we are eagerly awaiting the same.”

6. Finance and Digitization

Srikanth Nadhamuni, Chairman and CEO, Novopay

In the current budget I see some tangible next steps towards the Digital India vision. The push for Aadhaar Pay for merchant payments and P2P send and receive payments is going to remove the friction of cash, aqutely felt during demonetization. The addition of 10lakh mPOS terminals by the Banks and the BharathNet high speed broadband connectivity to 1.5lakh gram panchayats will further enhance the digital economy and bring banking to rural India as well.