Business Standard Smart Business Event In Association With IAU, Dehradun

The 2018-19 Union Budget though has tried to address several pressing issues, but does not indicate any revolutionary changes in terms of policy framework or government’s fiscal priorities, former chief secretary of Uttarakhand, Indu Kumar Pande said.

He was speaking at Business Standard Smart Business Event on ‘Looking Beyond Today – Union Budget 2018-19 – Uttarakhand Context. 

The event was organized alongwith the Industries Association of Uttarakhand (IAU).

Pande said that global crude oil prices will remain the key to India’s economic health in 2018-19 as any significant jump in oil prices would jeorpardise all calculations. 

The government’s fiscal and monetary policies need to reconciled to give a growth-oriented outcome from the Budget, he said.  

“The Budget hasn’t clearly assessed the impact of GST and demonetization on Indian economy particularly on the Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises (MSME) sector as lot of after-effects of these twin measures are yet to unfold,” Pande said. 

On agriculture, Pande said in Uttarakhand’s there should be a clear shift towards contract farming as small holdings aren’t sustainable. 

“The recent scams like PNB has accelerated the need for reforms in the banking sector,” Pande added.

Dr Karunakar Jha, professor of Department of Marketing in the School of Business (UPES) in his address said that the Budget has enhanced the allocation for the health sector through the much-talked about ‘Modicare’, but a lot of questions remain about financial implication of the scheme, its implementation and also whether we have adequate hospitals to manage such a huge programme.  

He said the Union Budget’s focus on power, tourism and infrastructure should be beneficial for Uttarakhand. 

Pankaj Gupta, President of Industries Association of Uttarakhand (IAU) said that Union Budget 2018-19 fails to incentivize businesses for doing their business ethically. 

He said measures like 50 per cent profit over cost as Minimum Support Price (MSP) might be good for farmers but could lead to large cost escalation for the food processing industries many of which are in MSME sector

Rajiv Agarwal, senior vice president of Industries Association of Uttarakhand (IAU) said the Budget announcement of expanding the lower corporate tax rate of 25 per cent to companies having a turnover upto Rs 250 crore won’t be a big relief to MSMEs in Uttarakhand or even elsewhere as there are very few entities that will fall in this bracket. 

He also discounted the common notion that raising the turnover limit would encourage more MSMEs to become big as becoming a large company involves greater compliance issues.

“Uttarakhand needs a good project management cell which can liaison between the state government and industries, but what we find is that dialogue between the government and industry has gone down over the years,” Agarwal said. 

from left to right:

Pankaj Gupta- President Industries Association Of Uttarakhand

Indu Kumar Pande- Former Chief Secretary Of Uttarakhand

Prof Dr Karunakar Jha- Professor Department Of Marketing School Of Business UPES

Rajiv Agrawal- Senior Vice President Industries Association Of Uttarakhand