New Delhi, Feb 29 (KNN) As the General Budget for 2016-17 is unveiled in the Parliament, the new age start-ups and SMEs have geared up to analyze the extent to which there expectations have been fulfilled.

“The budget hasn’t listed many initiatives in the field of R&D, which is quite disappointing” said DC Shekhar, Managing Director, Alphamers which is an R&D based company in the area of oil spill response.

Speaking more about the budget, Shekhar said, “We can foresee the phasing out of accelerated depreciation in output in coming years, which is opposite of what we expected.”
“Also, the dividend distribution tax is not rational” he further stated.

For the initiatives in SME sector, Shekhar agreed to the fact that certain support has been extended to the start-ups, but the research and development has suffered with inadequate investment.

The announcement of SMEs acquiring 1 lakh crore under Mudra Scheme has depicted that budget has slightly shown it’s inclination towards the SMEs. “The amount is quite appealing but the system and the implementation of the process would take time” Shekhar told us.

“Moreover, a little bit of collateral free funding would be wonderful. Also if R&D equity interest is provided by the government, it would be highly favorable for the SMEs as R&D calls for high risk.” SHekhar talked about the unfulfilled expectations from the budget.

MSMEs appear to have significant amount of expectation that hasn’t been matched by the Budget.

“People were expecting big jump in the economy induced by the high investment which has been deficient.” Said V K Agarwal, Managing Director, Shashi Cables Ltd.

Agarwal also mentioned that the power sector has suffered badly as no significant investment has been made in the sector.

“ Though there has been an attempt to improve the infrastructure in agriculture sector making heavy investment in irrigation, but no investment has been proposed in the power sector which is very disappointing” he said.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Small and Tiny Association (TANSTIA) President, C Muthusami, said, “The MSME sector, especially in flood-hit Tamil Nadu, are disappointed with the Budget as there is no announcement of any special subsidy for them.”

He, however, hailed the announcements on allocation for Mudra Bank, EPF initiatives and allocation for skill development. (KNN Bureau)