While applauding the Union Budget 2016-17 Budget announcements, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI) president Dr Mahesh Gupta said that Budget has touched the ground and its focus on rural India would go a long way to generate demand in the economy and give a push to overall growth and development of the country.
The nine pillars of Union Budget viz. Agriculture, rural sector, health sector, education skills and job creation, infrastructure and investments, financial sector reforms, Governance and ease of business, fiscal discipline, and tax reform to reduce compliance burden are inspiring and will not only fuel economic growth but increase India’s competitiveness, he said in a statement issued here.
We are happy that our suggestion to increase deduction on exemption for Income Tax on interest paid on Home loans has been partly accepted as there is an additional exemption of Rs50,000 for housing loans up to Rs35 lakh, provided cost of house is not above Rs50 lakh which will give a boost to the real estate sector, Dr Gupta said.
We suggest that there should not be any cap on the price of house. It should be open-ended for the house buyers, he said.
Stimulus to real estate sector would provide a significant fillip to the economy and enhance India’s GDP and so will be the level of enhanced revenue to the Government and desired fiscal consolidation, said Dr Gupta.
Allocation of over Rs87,000 crore for rural development is encouraging as it will increase farmers’ income in the coming times and fuel rural demand which is the need of the hour, he said.
Allocation of Rs38,500 crore for MGNREGA will facilitate employment generation in rural areas and will facilitate all-inclusive growth in the economy he said.
However, the supply side should also be focussed particularly availability of food items should be ensured as demand is going to increase in the rural segments in the coming times, Dr Gupta said.