Budget reactions

Positive thrust on startups, but concerns persist

For startups and SMEs, Self Employment Talent Utilisation (SETU), the techno-financial incubation scheme, is a big positive. The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) platform to foster research and development (R&D) and innovation is another positive. Tax on royalty/fee for technical services reduced from 25 per cent to 10 per cent will be helpful in reducing cost of technology and give more incentive for technology deployment. The public procurement dispute resolution Bill is likely to streamline the government procurement process, and also address some of the pending disputes. This will give a fillip to Industry participation in domestic markets. Increase in service tax rate by 1.5 per cent , is disappointing. Further, with mounting backlog in service tax refunds, the Industry will be impacted.
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BVR Mohan Reddy
Executive chairman of Cyient Limited and vice chairman of Nasscom

 
Growth inducing one

While there was nothing dramatic in the Budget, it broadly seems to be a growth inducing one. It provided a decent balance of social reforms and growth initiatives including 'Make in India'. Several small items seem like they may add up to have an impetus to Make in India. The corporate tax reduction to 25 per cent from 30 per cent is straight away making more money available to the companies for investments and growth. The technical services tax reduction and reduction of duties on raw material import both should help the manufacturing sector. Streamlining the foreign investment process as well as the increased visa on arrival facility will hopefully also simplify external investments. A few measures seem in place to promote startups. While the details are unclear, the Rs 150-crore world-class IT hub will hopefully encourage development of new technology and products. The Rs 1000-crore startup corpus, given the wording seems like will help setup and grow incubators and startup seeding.

Ramesh Loganathan
Vice president and MD of Progress Software and president, Hyderabad Software Enterprises Association

Visa on arrival a great impetus

With a new visa on arrival policy we have made the world a global playground and this will be a great impetus to travel and tourism industry. With this move, we are confident that the tourism industry will make a quantum leap in growth. This will have a direct impact on aviation, infrastructure like airports, hotels, resorts and will also attract global skill sets which will make India a strong global visible player.

Rajeev Reddy
Chairman and managing director of Country Club Hospitality and Holidays Limited

Hike in service tax to have negative impact

We have mixed reactions to the Union Budget. It is encouraging that the government has laid emphasis on job creators by promoting entrepreneurship. However, so far there were talks of Rs.10,000 allocation for startups so we don't have a clarity whether in this Budget the allocation of Rs 1,000 crore under SETU for the startups is in addition to the same or it is Rs 1,000 crore only now. Although the corporate taxes have gone down by 5 per cent, the increase in service tax and surcharge will have negative impact on the startup ecosystem. Due to the change in the permanent base treatment, this could be a boost in fund manager startup space.

Safir Adeni
President, The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Hyderabad

Techno Fin Incubation a welcome step

The vision of minimising the rural-urban divide aims at connecting India. Make in India campaign will increase employment 20-30 per cent in the non -IT sector. Since the focus is on skill development in rural areas, recruitment will increase in Tier-II and III cities. Assistance to the budding entrepreneurs segment is a welcome step. The establishment of Techno Financial incubation and facilitation programme will support the budding entrepreneurs.

Ajay Kolla
Chief executive officer and founder of Wisdomjobs.com