Port Blair, Feb 02: The President, Andaman Chamber of Commerce & Industry Mr. Girish Arora and Members of ACCI welcomed and termed the Union Budget presented by the Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Mr. Arun Jaitley is a balanced budget.
In a press release the ACCI today said that the announcement that 10 prominent sites would be developed as iconic tourist destinations, up gradation of 100 Adarsh monuments; action of frame work to encourage sea planes and raising the capacity of airports by 5 times will all help in the growth of tourism. The Chamber also urges the Government of India to include Andaman in the 10 circuits announced.
The impact of 2018 budget is positive for Agriculture and Food Processing sector, affordable housing sector, health insurance industry and the textile sector. Demand for agriculture-related products such as fertilisers, crop protection chemicals, micro irrigation equipment will go up. Since the focus will be on technology and modernization, warehousing and logistics industry will also get benefitted. Financing for these sectors will increase. The affordable housing sector will continue to grow in the coming years. We will see increased growth in low income/ small budget houses in tier 1 cities, and growth in housing in tier 2 and 3 cities. Consequently, the related industries in the supply chain – Steel, Iron, Cement, Construction Materials, and Transportation, will witness growth.
The individual exemption limits for paying health insurance premium and transportation allowance have been increased to Rs. 40,000 (from Rs.25,000) for the taxpayer and to Rs. 50,000 (from 30,000) for senior citizen under 80D. This means that an additional Rs. 20,000-35,000 can be favourably looked at by individuals for allocating to health insurance premiums. India still looks at tax benefits for insurance premium payments and this would, therefore, be an effective stimulus towards increase of penetration of Health Insurance. This will boost the health insurance sector, health service providers, and also the pharmaceutical sector in general. Overall healthcare expenditure will get a boost.
The Budget 2018 demonstrates the Finance Minister’s intent to boost investments in rural development, education, healthcare and social sectors. The Budget recognises the role of “Infrastructure sector” as growth driver of the economy with an estimated investment requirement of massive INR 5.97 lakh crore. All time high allocation has been made to rail and road sector. The Finance Minister again shown interest to develop smart cities and bullet trains, but more action is expected at the ground level. Provision for rationalizing linkages of coal to power to railways have been made to make it more efficient.
The Budget has given a big boost to rural economic activities apart from agriculture with major initiatives for dairies, food processing, horticulture, aquaculture and animal husbandry, which the government hopes will contribute to its plan to double farmer income by 2022.
The dairy industry expects better cash flows, while it expects farmers in the sector to gain from Kisan Credit Cards. The Kisan Credit Card to dairy farmers and fisheries will facilitate farmers to have better cash flow and improve credibility thus improving on business growth. The Dairy farmers are usually landless and the extension of KCC will help improve their credit worthiness.
The release added that for senior citizen exemption of interest income on deposits with Bank and Post Office has been increased from 10,000/- to Rs.50,000/- and there will be no TDS on Fixed Deposits and Recurring deposits. Another relief to senior citizen is increase in the limit of deduction for medical expenditure of certain critical illnesses to 1 lakh under section 80DDB. All of these measures suggest that the Budget 2018 is a growth oriented budget.
