Industry leaders welcome the new budget

The Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Shri Arun Jaitley departs from North Block to Rashtrapati Bhavan and Parliament House, along with the Minister of State for Finance and Shipping, Shri P. Radhakrishnan, the Minister of State for Finance, Shri Shiv Pratap Shukla and the senior officials to present the General Budget 2018-19, in New Delhi on February 01, 2018.

Industry leaders have welcomed the budget presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

In the run up to the democratic year, the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at the outset highlighted that strengthening the rural economy, infrastructure, quality of education and the MSME’s Agriculture was the focus of the Budget 2018. Focus on the growth of Smart Cities, digitization, sustainability, the provision of basic utilities shows an ongoing commitment towards expansion. The budget also highlights the formation of additional construction and urban development bodies to fulfill the much needed skill gap in the built environment. The additional commitment to rural affordable housing is also a welcome addition, as is the recapitalization that allows banks to lend Rs.5 lakh crores.  Affordable housing, where the real deficit exists, saw an encouraging boost with the creation of a dedicated Affordable Housing Fund by the National Housing Bank (NHB) to address the issue of funding constraints faced by all stakeholders. GST rates should have come down for real estate that would have helped middle income group from pricing point. Except tax benefit for the slab from 2.5lakhs to 5 lakhs, no announcement is made related to Housing loan, interest rate etc.”

Aniket Haware, Managing Director Haware Builders

“Today’s budget announcements are certainly creating a headway for India to become the largest digital economies in the world. Right from ploughing the seed of digital in education, creating the infrastructure to connect villages to encouraging establishment of advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence including research and development through Niti Ayog’s national programme will certainly help the existing market move towards digital.

Manav Jeet, MD & CEO, RubiqueProviding Infrastructural Support to MSMEs: MSMEs have been the focus even for Rubique. It’s the most important sector yet underserved segment when it comes to access to finance. Allotment of Rs 3 lakh crore for lending in FY 19 under PM’s MUDRA Yojana for MSMEs definitely bring cheers to them. Also government’s initiative to focus on process digitization & easing the loan sanctioning process will help & encourage the emerging fintechs like us which are taking efforts to digitize the ecosystem with increased acceptance by the ecosystem.

Focusing on Digitizing Banking: Although these initiatives will definitely help Fintech companies like us to expand & help bridge the credit gap for MSMEs, we are also hopeful to see government coming up with special tech measures to bring out e-signature facilities within banks and enable access credit digitally removing the need for paperwork which usually delays the disbursal.

Bringing innovative tech support like Blockchain: We are yet to match the security measures implemented in developed countries, hence the decision to eliminate the use of cryptocurrencies and encourage the use if blockchain in payments sector is definitely a wise decision by the government. Although several banks have started adopting blockchain technology within their existing infrastructure, it will be note-worthy to see how this tech implementation is going to shape up the financial inclusion of the country.”

Manav Jeet, MD & CEO, Rubique