(MENAFN- Live Mint) New Delhi: Industry leaders urged measures to boost investment, education and healthcare in a pre-budget consultation with finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday.
Key proposals included expanding presumptive taxation to MSMEs and emerging sectors like data centres and cloud computing, aimed at spurring job creation, integrating India into global value chains, and measures to boost domestic consumption, fostering a win-win for taxpayers and the government.
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The discussions, held ahead of the Union budget to be presented on 1 February 2025, come at a crucial time for India's economy, which is grappling with slowing growth and geopolitical challenges to trade. The discussions were attended by representatives from health, education and manufacturing sectors.
Industry body CII suggested the government address seven priorities through policy measures, which include employment generation, integration of India into global value chains, continued focus on capex and fiscal consolidation, augmenting central government revenue by divestment and launching the National Monetization Pipeline (NMP) 2.0 for the period 2026 to 2030, rolling out measures to boost consumption, rationalising subsidies, and addressing extreme climate events.
Reforms to unlock potential
"Building on the remarkable success in manufacturing in certain sectors, similar targeted interventions for sectors with large-scale employment potential like ready-made garments, footwear, furniture, tourism, real estate and construction etc. For example, infrastructure status to tourism, PLI 2.0 for RMG (Ready-Made garments), expedited FTAs with countries like the EU and the UK, besides lower duties on imports of raw materials like cotton and next-gen reforms, particularly labour reforms will go a long way in unlocking the potential of such labour-intensive sectors," said CII's president Sanjiv Puri, who attended the talks.
Also read | CII seeks excise duty cut in petrol, diesel in FY26 Budget
He added that CII's suggestions to the government to boost consumption included reducing excise duty on fuel to bring down overall inflation and boost disposable incomes, reducing marginal tax rates for personal income upto ₹20 lakh per annum to trigger the virtuous cycle of consumption, higher growth and higher tax revenue, and increasing the minimum wage rate under MGNREGS from ₹267 a day in FY 24 to ₹375 a day as suggested by the Expert Committee on Fixing National Minimum Wage.
The consultation with industry bodies featured CII's Sanjiv Puri, Assocham's Sanjay Nayar, FICCI's Vijay Sankar, Neeraj Akhoury, president, Cement Manufacturer's Association (CMA), Bhavna Doshi, IMG Chamber of Commerce, Satish Reddy, Chairman of Dr Reddy's Labrotaries Ltd, Chanakya Chaudhary of Tata Steel, Raj Kumar Gupta of CIFI, Shradha Suri Marwah of ACMA, and Bajrang Bagra, secretary general, Vishva Hindu Parishad.
Slew of measures sought
ASSOCHAM, in its pre-budget meeting with Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, has sought a slew of measures to encourage investment, including extending the scope of presumptive taxation to MSMEs and new age businesses like data centres, data hosting, cloud computing etc. offers a win-win situation both for taxpayers and the Government, said Sanjay Nayar, Assocham's president.
"This would help simplify compliances in the hands of such taxpayers by computing income on a predetermined basis, thereby reducing the apprehension of tax disputes and litigation. It also enables businesses to avoid complex audits/bookkeeping while knowing their tax liability in advance, allowing businesses better financial planning and management," he added.
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Meanwhile, health sector representatives, who met the finance minister on Monday included Kailash Sharma, Director at the Tata Memorial Centre, public health specialist Atul Kotwal, Abhijat Seth, president at the National Board of Examinations, and Hari Menon, professor at the St John's National Academy of Health Sciences.
Education sector representatives, who met Sitharaman and top finance ministry officials on Monday included Raj Nehru, vice chancellor of Shri Vishwakarma Skill University, Ramya Venkataraman, founder and CEO of CENTA, Geeta Bhatt, general secretary of Akhil Bhartiya
Rashtriya Shaikshik Mahasangh (ABRSM), Ashish Chauhan, national organising secretary of ABVP, and Vinnie Jauhari, director, World Wide Public Sector Education at Microsoft.
Real GDP growth slipped to 5.4% in the September quarter, the lowest in nearly two years, dragged down by a slowdown in manufacturing, urban consumption, and weak corporate earnings.
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