Friday, February 26, 2010 - ASSOCHAM President Dr. Swati Piramal while welcoming Budget proposals, termed them as Pragmatic, positive, growth and development oriented as these aim at attaining inclusive growth.
"The Finance Minister has performed the most balancing act under given circumstances by partially rolling out the Stimulus package and at the same time paid adequate attention for development of social sector and more specifically so for rural sector", said Dr. Piramal.
Mr. Mukherjee has done his best in the budget proposals to fuel consumption and sufficiently incentivised renewable energy, infrastructure, research and development in health and equipped these sectors with reasonably higher allocations.
Dr. Piramal also welcomed a deadline set for introduction of GST and Direct Tax Code, pointing out that these would be major tax reforms which will not only provide tax relief's to people and industry but also help the government realize higher tax collections.
According to ASSOCHAM, the budget proposals will bring in more money in hands of individuals as several good measures have been introduced in the Finance Bill in the form of tax relief's to general public. Mr. Mukherjee for the first time in the recent history of budget presentation placed huge faith in the private sector which will come forward to building Indian economy and help it achieve higher growth in years to come.
The ASSOCHAM has also welcomed announcements for bringing in more and more services under the purview of service tax by not tinkering with it's existing ceiling rate of 10%.