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NT Bureau
Chennai, Mar 3:

        Reactions continue to pour in from corporates and trade bodies for and against the proposals announced in the Union Budget.

        Raymond chairman and managing director Gautam Hari Singhania pointed out that Union Finance Minister has strived to continue the reform process for growth sustenance. The increased allocation to agriculture in terms of rural infrastructure would spur farm sector to move beyond its present unsatisfactory growth rate of 2.3 per cent to the targeted 4 per cent, thereby enhancing the living conditions of farmers.

        Another welcome feature is the emphasis on soft infrastructure, education, and training besides health which would help in overall development, he said and added that the extension of service tax to cover rental of commercial properties is unwelcome as it would increase the cost of operations of the retail sector.

        TANPPA

        Tamilnadu, Pondy Plastic Manufacturers and Merchants Association president G Sankaran said that the proposal as envisaged in the Union Budget to raise the ceiling limit of excise duty for the SSIs from the present Rs 1 crore ceiling limit to 1.5 crore is just a negligible relief. It is well known fact that one of the basic reasons for the increase in the prices of food items is related to the plastic bags within which they are packed. Expressing concern over the neglect of their repeated representations for total removal of countervailing duty on all plastic raw materials and containing spiralling prices of food items, he said that the plastic industry is disappointed. In all, the budget in its content is a damp squib.

        Welcoming the proposals, HyperCity Retail India Pvt Ltd finance head, Dharmendra Jain said Finance Minister has taken the right step in reducing the Central Sales Tax by one per cent in his initiative to move towards Goods and Service Tax regime. From a retail industry standpoint, the growth in agriculture sector will boost consumption in the economy and provide an impetus to the sector. 'The retail industry was however hopeful that the Finance Minister would announce the formation of a regulator/ monitoring agency to provide support to the overall sectoral growth on the same lines of insurance/ telecom industry,' he added.

        Tantia Constructions Ltd vice president Siddarth Tantia said that it was heartening to note that urban development has received more focus in the budget proposals. Excise duty increase for special grade cement would impact the prices to great extent while service tax on infrastructure projects shall mean more cost for infrastru-cture construction companies.

        Largely, the infrastructure focus is there, but excise, service tax and education cess implications are not encouraging for the industry.

        MAIT

        Manufacturers Association for Information Technology (MAIT), the apex body representing country's IT hardware, training and R&D services sectors has welcomed the thrust given in the budget to sustaining the national economic growth and making it inclusive. MAIT executive director Vinnie Mehta said that the industry expressed its satisfaction for announcing several schemes towards promotion of education especially among the socially and economically backward.

        The industry has welcomed the increase in budgetary allocating for e-governance at the Centre by 82 per cent to Rs 719 crore and to State governments by 66 per cent to Rs 500 crore, in addition to the move to computerise the public distribution system. These steps will provide further impetus to the industry. Oracle India managing director Krishan Dhawan has said that the there wasn't any need for dramatic change in the budget in a situation where there is positive growth trajectors and added that the it was good to see the fiscal deficit under control.

        Asia Motor Works Ltd MD and CEO Anirudh Bhuwalka hailed the budget wherein more emphasis has been made for education, rural development and infrastructure and added that it was encouraging to hear that VAT would be effectively implemented. With Finance Minister initiating the process of phasing out Central Sales Tax with reduction in the CST rate from 4 per cent to 3 per cent would definitely mark the beginning of the process of a very significant tax reform measure, which is critical for success of VAT.