Budget 2022: Growth vaccine for revival, says Centrum Group's Jaspal Bindra

The Budget maintained a fine balance between boosting job creation, supporting start-ups, sunrise and core industries, MSMEs and rural development along with a thrust towards greater financial inclusion and digitisation. The infrastructure sector got a major boost with a better-than-expected hike in capital expenditure targets. Direct and indirect tax collections continue to be robust, justifying the unchanged tax rates. The fiscal deficit is reducing as a percentage, in line with the target, and the rupee value increase is welcome as it is entirely to meet the incremental capex spend.

Extension of ECLGS with additional allocation to the hardest pandemic-hit sectors is a welcome move. The revamp of CGTMSE and large capex spend will be an added opportunity for banks to extend lending with lower credit costs, albeit at a higher interest rate. The Budget continues its consistency of providing incentives for entrepreneurship and domestic manufacturing.

The setting up of 75 digital banking units and 150,000 post offices coming on the core banking platform, combined with an increasing penetration of smart phones, will provide a major boost to financial inclusion. Going forward, the introduction of a digital currency on the blockchain platform will help reduce financial and physical efforts required for money management.

Some misses: A stimulus thro­u­gh customs duty reduction on select commodities could have been exten­ded to the metal industry, which is struggling with surging input costs. The government could have extended some comfort to the real estate sector given the strong multiplier effect it has on the economy.