Increase ease of doing business: Quess Corp

By Subrata Nag

The Union Budget for the Financial Year 2018-19 concentrated on elevating the economy and improving the quality of the education system in the nation. This year, the interim budget (announced on February 1, 2019) spoke of multiple benefits that aided growth for both individuals and businesses. Continuing a growth phase, there are many expectations from people and business owners to see some reforms that would aid faster development within the country. Especially in Agriculture, the most important sector for a stable economy. The growth in this sector could affect the overall economy, thereby improving the stock of other industries. All this is expected of the Union Budget for the financial year 2019-20.

Presently, over 50% of the nation's populace is under the age of 25; as seen in the past few years, the youth in India are entrepreneurial, hungry for economic growth and are looking for social advancement to achieve their goals. With the new Union Budget, the government needs to ensure the readiness of upskilling policies that can efficiently handle skills correlated to the industry, which will create a job-ready pool of employable resources. The goal of accomplishing swift economic growth, equity, and employment generation, would be of extreme significance for the government, to attain better productivity from the young workforce.

Key focus of the budget should be to increase the ease of doing business in the country and the impetus for the rural agriculture sector, to create more jobs and businesses. A much-anticipated decrease in the corporate tax rate will empower organizations to facilitate reinvestments in development undertakings. With these considerations in the new budget, Indian businesses could contribute better to the economy.

In addition to current needs, the government must also look to structure skilling policies that can meet the demand of the new age industrial to create employment opportunity across sectors.

This can be done through the allocation of budgets for various initiatives like Skill India at the government’s end while incentivizing the hiring of candidates who have completed these training. With such an endeavour, private organizations also stand to benefit in a collaborative manner.

Outside of skilling, other government initiatives have also gained a major foothold, making important contributions to the economy. The continuation of these successful flagship employment generation schemes like PMRPY is required in the current scenario. Encouragement to employment-related services like recruitment and staffing should be included under 5% GST; this will also ensure faster employment shift from informal to formal sectors. This shift directly factors into the move towards the digital era where employment opportunities are burgeoning. The rise in skilled resources, combined with the expansion of available opportunities has the potential to make telling contribution to the country’s overall progress.

There is a need for the government to donate equal focus to this sector in addition to developing infrastructure.

Overall, the expectation of the budget is to be pro-growth, while maintaining the fiscal discipline. The slowdown of GDP growth to a five year low of 6.8% for FY19, emphasizes the need for tax reforms, better infrastructure and improved employment opportunities in the country. The government must take note of all the issues impacting growth and prioritize better to boost the economy.

The author is Group CEO, Executive Director at Quess Corp.