The Union Budget presented by the Finance Minister on Wednesday has been given a thumbs up by majority of people. With host of ‘goodies’ for the low income group, a large section has lauded the budget to be a ‘pro-poor budget’.
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(Canara Bank MD & CEO Rakesh Sharma)
Good budget with welcome thrust on agriculture, rural development, housing and infrastructure would promote both economic growth and distributive equity. Several measures focused on agriculture would bring about a more equitable pattern of economy. Thrust on digitalisation would encourage banks to step up their technological and automation drive. Fiscal deficit for 2017-18 pegged at 3.2% and for next three years at 3 % is good and would be reassuring both in India and abroad. Amendment to SARFAESI Act will be helpful to the banks.
Al-Ain Holding LLC, Support Services Group Head Valerian Dalmaida
AN EYEWASH!
Well, there is nothing great about this budget and for me, it is more of an eyewash. For the individual tax payers reducing 5% tax and and a tax reduction of Rs.12,500 for people earning income upto Rs 20 lakhs- What else?
The real budget should be abolition of direct tax, introduction of single tax like GST across the board and introduction of bank transaction tax on payment of Rs.50,000 or more
Successive governments have failed people of India. Section 13A- anonymous contribution in cash to political parties should have been repealed. Political funding is the main cause for corruption and black money generation. Reducing the limit to Rs 2,000 from Rs 20,000 is not the way out. The political parties have been issuing five receipts so far for a donation of Rs 20,000, and now they will issue 50 receipts! How is this going to bring a change?
The Government could have done better if it had the will to stop corruption and black money by repealing Section 13A, bringing super rich farmers whose income is more than Rs one crore under the tax bracket, taxing betting and gambling, reintroduction of inheritance tax, Tax incentives to all start ups instead of selected few start ups including e-commerce, internet based and digital based companies. All start ups should be provided with seed money of a minimum of Rs.1 crore with a tax holiday of 5 years and repayment of seed money over a period of 15 years without interest. This would have boosted the spirit of PM’s Make in India and Digital India concepts and young tech savvy and rural entrepreneurs could have been motivated.
I would rate this budget a mere two on scale of ten.
LUKEWARM BUDGET
(Padma Shri Dr. Kamini Rao, Medical Director, Milann)
The budget 2017 evokes a positive response from various sectors, as far as the healthcare is concerned, this one was a lukewarm budget. The Aadhar card containing health details for senior citizens is a good initiative. The reduction of cost of medical devices is a welcome change, because this is what we need as this would boost the make-in-India initiative and enable reduction in import duty and reach a large number of people. India is the only country where the drugs prices are controlled while in the US the cost of the same drugs are higher. There is no affordability in India on drugs, but now with more of drugs coming out with their generic name name, this might change the scenario going forward. With the pharma companies mushrooming constantly, this would not be an easy time for them as they would not be able to quote the actual price.
Women are given a lot for importance during this year’s budget. The Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY), the Centre’s key maternity benefit program targeted at pregnant and lactating mothers, which has gone up from Rs 400 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 21,000 crore in the new fiscal year, is the most welcoming sign of the budget. I feel it is a progressive budget with ample focus on women, youth, lower middle class segments. The implementation is very important now, there are a lot of funds allocated but they need to distribute it accordingly. It is a very good and big step towards a better economy.
‘AGRO-RURAL’ BUDGET
( CREDAI President D B Mehta )
The budget is a balanced ‘agro-rural’ budget, which will give boost to rural growth and the increase of 25% in capital expenditure will create more jobs as well as improve infrastructure.
Holding period for Capital gains on sale of immovable property land and building to qualify as long term capital gains which the government intends to reduced to 2 years from 3 years in the Union budget is a very good move as it benefits all stake holders.
Currently, capital gains on land and building qualify as long term capital gain if holding period is minimum 3 years. The base year for calculation of such capital gains with indexation benefit is also proposed to be shifted from 1981 to 2001. These steps are expected to reduce the capital gains tax burden.
Including ‘Affordable housing’ in ‘Infrastructure Category’ will definitely make housing affordable where even people earning around Rs 15000 per month like auto drivers, road side vendors could dream of owning a house of their own. Bank interests will be lower with wide payment options along with government offered subsidies and benefits will give an opportunity to the lower strata of the society an opportunity to own a property. Waiver of service tax for projects completed within the stipulated period and no liability of Income Tax will benefit the builder as well as buyer provided people move forward to avail the attractive benefits within the specified period.
Pegging Revenue and fiscal deficit are the other positives in this budget which has reduced the inflation. However, the most “Innovative Part” being on political party funding where options are limited!
However, having said that, I must add that IT rate benefits given to companies (Reduction in tax from 30% -25% for companies below Rs 50 Crore turn over) creates dual tax structure where proprietor and partnership based companies end up paying more taxes till they convert those into private limited companies. All in all, I would give a 9, excluding demonetization and 7.5 including note ban considering the pain people went through.
BALANCED AND HAS PERSPECTIVE
(Kamal Khetan, SUNTECK Realty Chairman and Managing Director)
The Government has been ushering in key initiatives to drive India’s economic growth and social welfare over the last few years. The Union Budget 2017 continued in the same direction and came across as a very balanced and progressive budget. The focus on economic growth was clear from the record high allocation towards infrastructure. From the real estate sector perspective, the “Housing for all by 2022” initiative got a further boost through the coronation of Infrastructure status to the affordable housing segment. This will help lower the cost of borrowing, provide easier access to foreign funds like ECBs. Another initiative to promote affordable housing was that under the scheme for profit-linked income tax deduction, carpet area will now be counted instead of built up area of 30 and 60 Sq.mtr. The time frame for completion of such units was also increased from within 3 years of approval to 5 years. Also, the time-frame for long-term capital gain tax on properties has been reduced to 2 years from 3 years which should provide a major push for ready / near ready inventories. Other measures included higher allocation for the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin amongst other things. Overall, a confluence of the above factors and the recently reduced interest rate on home loans should help attract more investments into the housing sector and uplift the demand scenario.
EXCELLENT
(Ashish Puravankara, Managing Director, Puravankara Limited)
The Union Budget, true to its expectations, has spelt out roadmaps and allocations across various initiatives of the Central Government and the Finance Minister has done an excellent job of managing the expectations. Initiatives to Real Estate industry have been spoken at length where the sentiments have been largely positive.
The revisions to capital gains tax through reduction in holding period from 3 years to 2 years with a consequential revision of the base year to 1 April 2001. Payment of capital gains by landlord on Joint Development agreements in the year of completion is a welcome move. This will enable Real estate companies to pursue development without further infusion of capital in the acquisition. Revision of Built-up area to Carpet area is a great move to push for apartments in affordable housing category. Affordable Housing will boost investment in this category. Extension of period for carrying forward the MAT Tax from the existing 10 years to now 15 years is a welcome move. Furthermore, fiscal deficit for 2017-2018 has been estimated at 3.2% of the GDP which may lead to a lower borrowing programme, this is an excellent move and will go a long way to meet the country’s growth objectives. 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.
BOOST TO REAL ESTATE
(Sandeep Singh Gaur, Seltres Developers CEO
The government’s move of giving ‘Infrastructure status’ to affordable housing as this is the biggest boost to the real estate sector because it will make funding easier.Gaur said this will also play a critical role in achieving PM’s dream of ‘Housing for All’ by 2022 and increase the participation of private players in the sector. The industry that was struggling in the last couple of years, on the number of product launches, will get a boost through this move. “Another interesting aspect is a reduction in corporate tax rate for MSMEs having revenues less than Rs 50 Crore to 25 percent. The government had introduced a profit-linked income tax deduction for promotion of affordable housing which was not well accepted because it had certain constraints and parameters which were not practical. But, by increasing the ambit of the scheme, a key announcement of counting the carpet area instead of built-up area, for Affordable Housing of 30 (Metro) and 60 (rest of India) square meters, will broadly increase housing sizes and hence the scheme will now have a true impact on the sector. Also, the tax benefits period has been increased to 5 years which was 3 years earlier.
The budget proposes to change the prevalent practice and has clarified that the landowner entering into a joint development agreement for development of the property, shall be subject to capital gains tax upon completion of the project. This is a significant change, because it will now make joint development agreements easier which in turn will lead to increase in supply of projects.
PRO-POOR BUDGET
(Jeevan Saldanha, President of Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry)
The budget does not have any shocks to the economy. Basically, it is a pro-poor budget with host of goodies for the low income group, which is a positive point. However, the budget does not hold much for the large industries as such and some benefits have been earmarked for the MSME, which again will not benefit the entire MSME sector, barring proprieties and partnership firms. However, having said that the trade and industry may have to look forward to the GST as we are now standing at the doorstep of the same. I am specifically happy about the ceiling on donations to political party. This is a big and bold step which will curb favouritism and corruption to a very large extent.
COMMON MAN’S BUDGET
RJ Errol
I feel it’s more of a common man’s budget. More concentration on rural areas, farmers and more importance to co-operative banks are the highlights.
Effort to boost digital India, online payments, no increase in Income Tax, no service charges on e-ticket, cap of Rs 2,000 on political donations by anonymous donors are some of the strong points.
Hope this budget will create more job opportunities in India and hope the government implements these projects effectively.
FAIR ONE
(Vincent D’Costa, Principal of Rotary School, Moodabidri)
This budget is a fair one. The middle class and poor will benefit more. There is a great chance to create job opportunities which is a positive step. Housing more affordable is a sweet news.
