The last complete Budget before the 2019 general elections brings lots of hopes from trade and industry and common man in general .This government has by far done a commendable job in addressing various issues related to Indian economy. The year 2017 has been quite eventful with three major reforms, viz, Demonetization, GST and Bankruptcy and Insolvency Code.
The major agenda has been to flush out black money, cashless economy, rationalization of indirect taxes, bring informal to formal and addressing NPA issues.
This budget is expected to be an extension of all these measures. Most important being the after effects of these steps have started dwindling and economy seems to come back to normalcy. It is expected that India should bounce back to 7% + growth consistently and steps need to be taken in that direction.
My wish list for Budget 2018 is more money in the hands of middle class as it drives spending and consumption.Therefore individual income tax to be lowered by at least 5 %; more job creation in both organised and unorganized sector; major impetus to infrastructure. Although we see in each budget government announces investments in infrastructure but it is not known how much gets utilized .This needs to be informed and reasons for non-implementation needs to be resolved; major push to industries related to infrastructure such as steel, cement, etc; amendment to Negotiable Instruments Act so that non-payment issues especially in SME and MSME Sector is addressed; sops to SME and MSME Sector for funding from banks. Most of the banks sitting on hugh deposits but credit off take is poor in this sector; introduction of social security and same can be linked to Aadhar; in order to make Make In India successful we need to make Indian manufacturing sector efficient. The Customs Duty structure should be minimum on raw material, incremental on semi-finished and maximum on finished .Therefore rationalization of customs duty is a must; impetus on technology and efficiency.
This government has been proactive and this budget is expected to be a PROGRESSIVE BUDGET.
@EPC World Media
