Union Budget 2018-19 does not offer much to woo the MSMEs: Economist

New Delhi, Feb 1 (KNN) The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech proposed a slew of measures for different sectors including the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). These measures include a 3794 crore rupee allocation for the sector.

Talking to KNN, Dr. Yerram Raju, Economist said that the budget can be seen in positive light, but it has got not much to offer for the micro, small and medium enterprises.

Raju said that the initial assessment of the proposed budget suggests that the government did not come up with specific announcements for the sector. MSMEs expected a much sharper redressal of the concerns such as problems in acquiring land at reasonable prices, special packages for rural industrial parks etc.

With regard to the revised corporate tax norm, Raju said that increasing the threshold under the norm is going to benefit only a section of the industry and not necessarily all the MSMEs.

“The corporate tax provision announced by Finance Minister Jaitley touches only 1.8 per cent of the industries”, Raju said.

Commenting over the government’s announcement of encouraging PSUs to engage with MSMEs over the TReDS, Raju said that for TReDS to work in an efficient manner, the government should come up with dedicated framework mandating the government departments and PSUs to register themselves on the portal.

The government should have come up with a scheme directing the states to achieve certain target and allotting those target amounts to the manufacturing sectors in these states, Raju opined.

Highlighting the positive points in the budget, Raju said that the allotment of special packages to the textiles and leather sectors is a positive move by the government.  Also the artisans are to get boost with the government announcing measures for the bamboo sector, he added.  (KNN/DA)