The Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Arun Jaitley, the Minister of State for Finance and Shipping, P. Radhakrishnan, the Minister of State for Finance, Shiv Pratap Shukla along with the senior officials presented the General Budget to the President, Ram Nath Kovind, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, in New Delhi on February 01, 2018.
The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has presented the Union budget 2018-19 in the parliament. Industry leaders have shared their thoughts on the same with us:
“The last few years have seen large initiatives designed to bring about substantive change. The FY18 budget marks time, with its particular focus on agriculture, healthcare and infrastructure and the continued thrust on the MSME segment. The focus on wide scale broadband access, on Machine learning, AI and robotics, on R&D as well as skilling, and on Smart Cities will keep pushing India’s Digital agenda, well supported by the additional fund allocation. It is a quietly progressive budget, and timed well to focus on readying all cross sections of Indian society to reap the benefits of the future.”
Anil Valluri, President, NetApp India & SAARC
“The budget of 2018 is going to further accelerate the gig-economy in India. There are couple of drivers which will make this happen, firstly, dearth of (high quality) jobs in the market, secondly, the lowering of corporate tax rate for companies with turnover of up to Rs. 250 crores, thirdly, tax benefits for a start-up vis-à-vis employment. The Govt. has also time and again reiterated that people should become job-providers rather than job-seekers. With the improvement in Ease of Doing Business in India, I am sure the gig economy is all set to explode.”
Aurobindo Saxena, Vice President, Technopak
“Balanced budget with overall growth of the country in focus with slight slippage on Fiscal Deficit. More focus on Rural India, Agricultural sector & introduction of LTCG may disappoint Equity Markets to some extent. Reduction in Corporate Tax rates for MSME companies will bring them back of growth tack. Various tax sops to senior citizens & focus on Infrastructure are welcome steps”.
Anita Gandhi, Whole Time Director at Arihant Capital Markets Ltd
“Rationalisation of LTCG as expected has arrived , though negative on sentiments but robust equity returns will absorb this 10% if corporate earnings growth happen as expected”.
Kamlesh Rao, MD & CEO at Kotak Securities