CII Welcomes The Interim Budget 2014-15

By 121 News Reporter

Chandigarh 17^th February:---- “The focus of the Hon’ble Finance Minister on checking the fiscal deficit at 4.6% for the current fiscal year is really commendable”, said Jayant Davar, Chairman CII Northern Region & Co-Chairman and Managing Direcrtor, Sandhar Technologies Ltd while commenting on the Interim Budget.

 He added that this shows the commitment of the government towards strictly adhering to the fiscal discipline roadmap. It is worth mentioning that in his budget speech of 2013-14, Finance Minister P.Chidambaram had targeted for fiscal deficit of 4.8% for the current fiscal. The fiscal deficit for 2014-15 has been pegged at 4.1% and revenue deficit at 3.0% clearly showing the resolve of the government towards the fiscal consolidation plan. CII believes that the priority of the new government, post General Elections 2014 will be reviving the economic growth. Thus, some of the key takeaways of the 10-point vision laid out by the Hon’ble Finance Minister will form basis of the regular budget to be presented by the next government.

Zubin Irani, Deputy Chairman, CII Northern Region & President, Building & Industrial Systems (India), United Technologies India Pvt Ltd. Said that the decision to reduce the excise duty by 2% to 10% on all goods falling under Chapter 84 & 85 of the schedule to the Central Excise Tariff Act is a welcome move. Automobile industry is one of the major part of the manufacturing sector and boosting the growth of this sector through the excise duty reduction will have a multiplier effect on the other related sectors, particularly the MSMEs. The decision to reduce the excise duty on small cars, motorcycles, scooters and CVs by 4% to 8%, SUVs from 30% to 24%, and large and mid-segment cars from 27%/24% to 24%/20% is a major relief for this sector. 

Capt Alok Sharma, Co-Chairman, CII Regional Committee on MSME & Managing Director and CEO, Forge (India) Pvt Ltd said that the provision of initial contribution of Rs 100 crore towards the corpus of the ‘India Inclusive Innovation Fund’ will certainly promote grassroot innovations in the MSME sector. In addition, proposal to create Research Funding Organisation to fund research projects and contributions made to the orgnaisation eligible for tax benefits will drive the innovation and research in the country. 

The focus on the skill development is worth appreciating, said Man Mohan Singh Kohli, Chairman, CII Chandigarh Council & CEO, Kalyan Singh Darshan Singh (Hotel Aroma) with transfer of additional Rs 1,000 crores to NSD Trust during 2014-15, apart from earlier commitment of Rs 1,000 crores will definitely facilitate in skilling the thousands of youths and also make them employable. 

Sharing the northern perspective of the Union Budget, Pikender Pal Singh, Regional Director, CII Northern Region said that allocation Rs 1,200 crore of central assistance to Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand including the NE states in this financial year will help these hilly states to finance their development plans. He added that exempting loading, unloading, packing, storage and warehousing of rice from service tax is also a welcome decision.