Mumbai: Reactions quickly started pouring in from India Inc as Pranab Mukherjee finished his Interim Budget speech and its lack of any major sops or changes and not surprisingly the unanimous reaction was: we’re not surprised.
“I was not expecting much from this,” said Sajjan Jindal of JSW Steel, referring to the Interim Budget. “For the next two-three months, we are going to have a policy freeze but monetary policies will address some factors like interest rates,” he added.
"It's an extremely dry budget", Ravi Ramu, CFO, Puravankara said. The hard-hit real estate sector had been leading the call for fiscal sops for it.
“It’s a non event for the entire corporate world,” says Prasvnath Pradeep Jain Prasvnath of opined. “The Interim Budget was merely a populist Budget.”
Jahangir Aziz, Chief Economist of JP Morgan, said there could be a problem of deflation going forward. “My concern will be about the second half and if till that time, there is lots of government borrowing, there will be trouble.”
Response to budget by Lalit Kumar Jain, Vice President CREDAI, President Promoters Builders Association of Pune (PBAP), chairman Kumar builders
”The policy changes in 1998 really boosted the activity and kick started growth in GDP through Real estate development. The government and all stake holders need to do much more than whets done. We divide our expectation in three parts”.
Deepak Parekh, Chairman, HDFC Bank says “Not a disappointment, I did not expect anything in the interim budget: It was never meant to be a giveaway. The writing was on the wall that the expenditure has gone out of sync and interim budget is only an exercise of stating accounts.”
Being a vote on account budget, NASSCOM and the IT Industry did not expect major announcements. It was however good to see continued focus by the Government on infrastructure and education.
It was also heartening to see the benefits that the Government is seeing in adopting IT, through projects like ‘Arrow’. To drive economic activity, the Government needs to expedite spending of these allocated funds particularly for IT projects, to stimulate the domestic market.
"We will engage with the new Government on specific policy initiatives to sustain industry’s growth. However, in the interim there is need for urgently removing the inequities and multiplicities of taxes and procedural issues even before the new Government comes in," NASSCOM official said
Nandan Nilekani, Infosys Co-Chairman, said not much can be expected from a vote on account as it's just a report card.
"First of all its a question of propriety. How many things can you have in a vote on account? Second if they had done little it would be not have much of a difference. It is the right strategy adopted by the UPA. It was report card for the last five years and it's futile to expect anything much on this vote on account budget.
Nilekani also said while no major steps were really expected from the vote-on-account, it was disappointing only because of the hype that preceded it.
"I think there was too much hype about the budget and it was disappointing only because of the all the hype. There wasn't anything wrong with the budget," he stated.
TVS Motor company's CMD, Venu Srinivasan says it was practically impossible for the Government to make big announcements.
"The only expectation I probably had was for the entry segment, the lowest segment. Maybe they'll play with the tax exemptions for that segment for the middle class. But I don't think before elections a Government should make significant policy announcements or practically make new ones. This is only a vote on account and it was stuck to propriety," he said.
Meanwhile, Chairman of Feedback Ventures Vinayak Chatterejee appreciated UPA Government for teh Interim Budget. He says this the maximum a Government can do before elections.
"Propriety does demand that you dont go around on beating the drum on some new programmes, new schemes, huge new outlay. So I think I appreciate the fact that there's a degree of sobriety in the way he presented an Interim Budget," he stated.
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