Several industries came out and expressed their satisfaction at the Budget.
Even as Opposition parties spoke up against the policies of the new Union Budget that was announced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today at the Parliament session, several industries came out and expressed their satisfaction at the Budget.
Ashish Puravankara, Managing Director, Puravankara Ltd. welcomed the Union Budget and said, "True to its expectations, the Budget 2017 has spelt out roadmaps and allocations across various initiatives of the Central government, and the Finance Minister has done an excellent job of managing those expectations. Incentives for the real estate industry has been spoken at length where the sentiments have been largely positive," he added.
The revisions to Capital Gains Tax (CGT) through a reduction in the holding period from three to two years, with a consequential revision of the base year to 1 April 2001, and payment of capital gains by landlords on the Joint Development Agreements in the year of completion were welcomed, he said. This would enable Real estate companies to pursue development without further infusion of capital in acquisition.
"Largely, we were anticipating encouraging announcements for the industry, and in the light of the upcoming RERA and GST implementation, we expect renewal of consumer confidence in the sector," he added.
Another industrialist Shishir Baijal, Chairman & Managing Director, Knight Frank India, described the budget as a "path breaking with far-reaching changes", especially for Realty.
Baijal stated, "It is positive that the real estate sector has come in the central spectrum of the Union Budget. This has come at a time when the beleaguered sector has been looking at measures to boost the sentiments. The real estate sector, which was hit badly by demonetization, will be one of the major beneficiaries of this budget. Prudence in fiscal discipline is welcome and will encourage the RBI to look at a lower interest rate regime that will provide the much needed fillip to this stressed sector."
Dilip Oommen, Essar Steel; Lalit Gupta, Essar Oil; Rajeev Agarwal, Essar Ports and Deepak Arora, CEO, Essar Foundation said that the budget clearly reflected the present Centre's motives of improving the living standards of the masses and focus on creating better infrastructure for long-term growth.
"The digitization of economy will certainly improve tax compliances, leading to growth in tax revenue," they added.
"The reduction in LNG duty is welcome as it will reduce the cost of energy in the system. The idea of integrated oil major as originally floated by UPA government, which was not found viable, is now being reconsidered by the present government," they said. On personal IT side, they welcomed the government's acknowledgement of the contribution by the salaried class.
However they wished there could have been some reflection of this acknowledgement by reducing tax rates of higher taxpayers within the salaried class. Larger period of 15 years for setting off MAT payments, however, was a good move, they added.