Coimbatore, Feb 1 : Captains of various sectors of industry Saturday welcomed the Union budget and provided suggestions to the finance minister, Nirmala Seetharaman.

Tirupur Exporters’ Association President, Raja M Shanmugham termed it as a people oriented budget, particularly to women.

Appreciating the focus on three aspects, Agriculture and farmer welfare, wellness and Education and Skills, he in a statement said the measures announced in the Budget will help for overall development of economy.

The allocation of Rs.100 Lakh Crore for investment in infrastructure will help to reduce the logistics cost as of now the poor logistics is one of the hindrance factors for attaining the export competitiveness by our units, he said.

While welcoming the announcement on proposal of setting up National Technical Textile mission with an out lay of Rs.1,480 Crores for a four per annum will boost the manufacturing of Technical Textiles in our country, he said the launching of a new scheme NIRVIK to achieve higher export credit disbursement, mainly to support small exporters.

The fund allocation for the Amended Textile Upgradatiaon fund was only Rs. 761.90 Crores when the pending claims to the industry is to the tune of Rs.8,500 Crores, he said and felt that this will not attract the industry to go for modernization and hope the Government will consider and address the issue.

In his reaction, G. Karthikeyan , Convenor, Economic Affairs and taxation panel, Coimbatore Zone CII said that the budget was presented with a recessionary phase in the background and hopes amongst the populace and industry alike of some big ticket reforms and tax cuts.

It is a welcome move that All around allocations made in health care, renewable energy, education, technology related advancements which will not only benefit the society at large but also help in pushing aggregate demand. We need to wait and see whether these will suffice in rekindling an animal spirit spurring growth remains to be seen, Karhikeyan said.

A long standing demand of increasing deposit insurance of Banks has been met with the limit per deposit increasing from Rs.1 Lakh to Rs.5 Lakhs, he said.

It is a good move to see that Start-up ESOPs have been tax deferred and. It remains to be seen whether these measures will push demand, consumption, and private investment and help the economy turn around, Karhikeyan said.

“The first full budget of this Government has focus on almost all sectors and is growth oriented. The budget had to balance between reducing expenditure (or low carber deficit) and accepting a weaker growth. And under the circumstances, this has been done well. With both real and nominal growth still low, fiscal consolidation may have been impossible. Hence the utilisation of the 50 basis room for fiscal profligacy. The guidance for FY 2021 is significantly predicated on successful disinvestment as tax collections are still sub-par.” Head Treasury, Lakshmi Vilas Bank R K Gurumurthy said.

Tinkering with the personal tax and some structural changes in the way DDT will work are cosmetic benefits that the small and medium investor will like and the worry is that there is no specific mention for bank recapitalisation, which when read with RBI’s Financial Stability Report that NPLs could still haunt Banks in India, could raise concern and cripple the ability of banks to lend, he pointed out.

Gross and Net borrowings are marginally higher. Market may be able to absorb the incremental borrowing without much impact. Overall a compact budget”, he said.