Measures may boost business confidence

The government, through this Budget, laid importance on the need to build trust with its stakeholders.

The first level of trust building has been through more realistic projections on its finances and assuming a nominal growth rate of gross domestic product of 10 per cent. While the deficit estimates have been breached, the government has not abandoned the path to fiscal prudence and has limited the breach to 0.5 per cent that is as in the FRBM provisions.

The government is committed towards addressing the apprehensions around doing business in India. Inclusion of a charter for taxpayers in statute and amendments to the Companies Act on clauses pertaining to criminal liability are two important announcements towards.

Enhancement of turnover to

~5 crore from ~1 crore for micro and small medium enterprises to require an audit, will help ease their compliance costs.

The stress in banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCS) has led to undermining of confidence in the sector. The enhancement of the deposit insurance to ~5 lakh from ~1 lakh will help in restoring the faith of small depositors in the banking sector.

In summary, these measures are likely to boost business confidence and address the apprehensions of businesses, investors and common people. We hope that these would have a positive rub-off on the economy, that is needed urgently, given the global and domestic economic outlook.