Allocation for new natural gas pipelines is encouraging: R Mukundan, Tata Chemicals

The Finance Minister has balanced expectations by ensuring that the fiscal deficit is curbed, a major fillip is given to infrastructure and stimuli is given by way of direct tax incentives. Reduction of taxes in chemicals and petrochemicals will encourage domestic manufacturing. The government intends to implement GST by the year-end; while this is a good sign, we hope that a roadmap is defined in the coming days to expedite this long overdue reform.
 
Some significant announcements have been made by the government with respect to the fertiliser sector in the days preceding the budget, but in his speech the Finance Minister has promised a new urea policy. I am pleased to note that the Finance Minister is budgeting Rs 100 crore for providing soil health cards to farmers, an initiative which has already been implemented by the Gujarat government successfully.
 
An additional provision has been made for fertiliser subsidy under non-planned expenditure which will augur well for the industry. The allocation for setting up new natural gas pipelines is encouraging as it will improve connectivity to factories spread across the entire country.
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R Mukundan is the Managing Director of Tata Chemicals Ltd