The Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) segment has immense potential to play a significant role in pushing India towards a strong and sustainable growth trajectory, said Dr Mahesh Gupta, president, PHD Chamber of Commerce & Industry (PHDCCI) .
MSMEs must be facilitated in terms of their credit demand, enhanced scope for capital requirements, availability of land and labour and ease of doing business in the Union Budget 2016-17, he said in a statement issued here on Monday.
Budget must focus on reforms for improvement in the four factors of production including land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship to bolster industrialisation in the country, Gupta said.
The time is most opportune to generate demand in the economy vis-à-vis significant decline in the costs of raw materials and to absorb a major chunk of skilled and unskilled labour in the productive sectors of the economy, he said .
Facilitation to housing and construction sector is expected to generate employment opportunities in the economy and a rebound in the demand scenario. Budget 2016-17 must provide tax incentives to home buyers to reduce the burden of EMIs. Deduction of up to `5 lakh can be made from the current level of `2 lakhs for interest paid on a home loan on a self-occupied house.
Decelerating prices of international commodities such as crude oil, steel and cement can be capitalised to give a boost to the construction sector and to build a stronger India.
We look forward to the timely implementation of GST and are enthusiastic to see a common market in India which will reduce the transactional costs and cascading impact of complex tax structure, he said.
Gupta said that the implementation of GST will improve the economic growth trajectory with a significant improvement in ease of doing business and enhanced employment opportunities.
As the global integration of the India’s economy is increasing and the country is now open to foreign entities at large, level playing field would be critical for the success of domestic businesses, he said. A vibrant and non adversarial tax policy would be crucial to enhance the speed of economic growth of the country, Gupta said.
We must move ourselves from an adversarial mindset to a facilitative mindset by creating a conducive and trusting environment in the economy Gupta said. Existing system of resolving the disputes between the taxpayers and the tax administration should be more transparent, efficient and time bound to lessen the hardship of the taxpayers.
The budget must focus on creating the state-of-art infrastructure in the country with channelized investments into sectors with high absorption capacity and attracting private investments. Raising public spending and stirring private investment could be a key measure for boosting the economy’s growth, said Gupta said. Drastic reforms are needed in the agriculture sector starting from the crop pattern to delivery at consumer door steps, he said.
Public investments in the agriculture sector would go a long way to improve farm connectivity with the markets and enhanced level of rural incomes.
Public investments in agriculture infrastructure sector would motivate the private sector to come forward to invest in the supply chain.
Given the high fiscal pressure, maximisation of non tax revenue by the Government is imperative and should be the prime focus of the year, he said.