Reduce excise duty on construction equipment: H Jayaram, Gmmco

In order to promote growth in infrastructure sector, Government should take measures to remove existing bottlenecks and improve the pace of existing programmes in the roads, railways, ports, and urban infrastructure sectors. Due to structural issues in the infrastructure sector, the earth moving and construction industry is being adversely affected. Some of our budget recommendations to the government are:
 
High lifetime road tax in different states restrict the movement of construction equipment in those states - which in-effect causes inadvertent delays in project execution. Instead, a uniform rate should be levied annually with a provision to work in any state.
 
On high interest rate by banks, cutting it to 4 percent per annum will improve financing options for construction equipment industry and will result in increase in demand
 
On indirect taxation, reduction of excise duty from 12.36 per cent to 10 per cent will encourage investment in the construction equipment industry
 
Concession on excise duty and sales tax will encourage the demand for construction machines for national priority missions like Swacch Bharat Abhiyan, development of smart cities, affordable housing scheme in India
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H Jayaram is the MD & CEO of Gmmco, a part of $1.6 billion diversified CK Birla Group