Industries in state cheer focus on manufacturing in Budget

However, critical tax reforms such as GST and DTC, essential for the industry have not been introduced

Industry in Karnataka has welcomed the recognition of the woes of the manufacturing sector by the Union government. It believes, the cut in excise duty on capital goods and consumer durables are steps in the right direction while hoping that this would boost the slackening manufacturing activities in the domestic sector.

"We hope that the new government will take steps to boost manufacturing as that is the only significant way to generate employment in the country," the Bangalore Chamber of Industries and Commerce said adding it also felt that a reduction in duty will mitigate the concerns of lower imports by the manufacturing sector.

BCIC President H V Harish said, "The Finance Minister was constrained by the need to present a Vote on Account Budget, but has taken measures to boost manufacturing, research and development, and infrastructure."

He also particularly commended the efforts of the government to give a thrust to infrastructure by developing three more industrial corridors viz, Chennai-Bangalore, Bangalore-Mumbai and Amritsar-Kolkata, which should augur well for the country to generate employment and growth. Also, the BCIC welcomed the development of five new National Manufa-cturing Investment Zones (NMIZs) outside the Delhi - Mumbai Industrial Corridor of which two are from Karnataka.

He also welcomed setting up a Research Funding Organ-ization that will fund research projects and encourage contributions to scientific research in a tax efficient manner. Chandramouli, Senior Vice President, BCIC, congratulated the government on giving thrust to skill development by setting up 24 Sector Skill Councils and allocating a substantial sum towards these.

He expressed disappointment that despite the UPA holding the office for a decade, the critical tax reforms such as GST and DTC that are essential for the industry have not been introduced and these have been left to the new government to decide.

He said, hoping the "new government will immediately introduce these tax reforms which are expected to give a boost of 2 per cent to the GDP and we hope that regardless of political situation, this will see the light of the day."

Anuj Sharma, Vice President, BCIC, said that there has been a slowdown in establishing infrastructure, especially in power in the past 10 years and hoped the new government will focus on this critical sector in a big way.

Without which we will not see an acceleration of economic growth. Expectedly, the Budget speech was more of an 'Election Budget' showcasing the achievements of the UPA government in the last 10 years and no core proposals were expected from the Finance Minister, with it being a Vote-on-Account Budget.