CII Mysuru chairman describes budget 'positive, well-balanced'

Time to realise government alone cannot solve everyone's problems'

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Mysuru chapter, chairman N Muthukumar, termed the recent Union budget as positive and well-balanced.

Participating in a session on ‘Union Budget 2016-17, an Analysis Accelerating the Momentum’ at Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Institute for Management Development (SDM-IMD), Muthukumar called on companies, industries, students and those associated with agriculture to make the best of it, as it mostly focusses on improvement of rural and agricultural sectors at large.

Muthukumar felt that the country can utilise the budget by improvising on the quality of work, especially in the manufacturing sector, as the emphasis is on ‘Make in India’. He said, “There are several ways to contribute towards the area, with quality of work and productivity. It has been learnt that the average productive working hours of an Indian employee, or the period of productivity at workplace is between three to five hours, whereas in China it is 6.5 hours and above. Hence in India, the quality of work has to improve for the betterment of companies.”

He said that it was high time that one should realise government alone cannot solve everyone’s problems, as it has already helped people tremendously in many ways. There is thus a huge need to create more job opportunities in the manufacturing sector. Though the budget has taxed many new areas, including individuals, the focus is still on overall progress of the country. The tax percentages on individuals is indeed high. However, compared to the 45 per cent taxation on individuals in USA and 38 per cent in China, it is still 30 per cent in India. So, let us consider that it is a growth towards the positive side,” he said.

Madhukar Dhakappa, Associate Director, PwC, spoke on ‘Technical Analysis and Impact on Direct and Indirect Taxes by Knowledge Partner’ and highlighted the impact of the budget on various aspects.

“This is the third budget of this government, which earlier focused on the legacy issues but has transformed its focus this season. The focus this time is more towards the Make in India concept, Swachh Bharat and the rural sector, which is a welcome move. We have to move towards becoming a developed country for we are one with a great potential,” he said.

He said that this year’s budget hasn’t made any big announcements, yet has a few positive sides to it. The inflation is down by one per cent, which is a good sign. However, the current deficit has gone up.

Shailendra Shukhlecha, Director, PwC, spoke on indirect tax proposals and said that the industries in the country had a lot of expectations from the budget this year. “Whenever you talk to a MNC post budget announcements, you find that they would not want any surprising changes announced. They will mostly look for simplification and towards getting rid of the long-drawn litigation. This is mainly because, several times the dispute resolution in several cases takes over eight years and still remain unresolved.

Earlier, students of SDM IMD presented a session on the highlights of 2016-17 budget announcements and the event concluded with a panel discussion and interaction.