Chennai: Industry body CII on Tuesday said the Union budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was growth-oriented, transformative and will set the tone for India to become the faster growing major economy by 2030.
Mr Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, Confederation of Indian Industry welcomed the government's unwavering commitment towards boosting investments, creating jobs, improving ease of doing business, maintaining tax stability and certainty in policy regime through well-designed and prudent measures delineated in the budget.
"With some success in implementation, we are confident that the growth projection made by the Economic Survey at 8.0-8.5% in 2022-23 will be met. Focus on growth is essential for creation of jobs and for generating resources to be spent on health and education of the masses, and for social welfare measures. Higher growth is also important for ensuring debt sustainability and overall macro-economic stability,", he said.
"We are happy to note that boosting investments was the leitmotif of the budget through enhanced public investments at both centre and support to state government capital expenditure. The massive 35.4% rise in capital spending budgeted for 2022-23 is in line with CII's suggestion and lends credence to government's vision of improving the economy's growth potential through a push to overall productivity of the economy and creation of jobs, Mr Banerjee added.
While giving a boost to investments, Ms Nirmala Sitharaman did a fine balancing act of maintaining fiscal discipline by containing the fiscal deficit at 6.9% for the current fiscal and bringing it down along a steady glide path of 6.4% next year.
CII Southern Region Chairman C K Ranganathan said the Budget sets the tone for India's aspiration to be the fastest growing major economy this decade.
The Finance Minister presented a very growth-oriented and transformative budget which will not only strengthen the economic recovery currently underway, but also lay the foundation for bolstering the medium to long term growth potential of the economy.
The budget has also addressed the major issues in the competitiveness of manufacturing and exports, ease of doing business and cost of logistics. These reforms need to be implemented in a timely manner to encourage increase in private investment and jobs in manufacturing.
The big push on infrastructure and related areas will also have a positive impact on other sectors, he said. CII welcomes the consideration by the Government of its long-standing recommendation of enhancing the ECLGS corpus to Rs 5 lakh crore and timeline extension till 31 March 2023.
Another important announcement that will support the growth of MSMEs is revamping the Credit Guarantee Trust for MSEs and facilitation of additional credit of 2 lakh crore.
The budget this year is providing new opportunities to MSMEs who can now use Surety Bonds as a substitute for Bank Guarantees for the government procurements which will reduce the impact on working capital and boost Industrial growth in the form of credit assistance, he said.
Mr Ranganathan also welcomed the support given to agriculture and infrastructure as growth drivers and highlighted that there were minimalistic tax changes in this year's budget allowing for capital expenditure, job creation and support for start-ups. (UNI)
