Sonica Malhotra Kandhari

Joint Managing Director, MBD Group

Overall, Budget 2021 is a pragmatic and positive budget which is committed to key sectors such as agriculture, healthcare and infrastructure development. Higher allocation of Rs. 64,180 crore on healthcare, which also includes Rs. 35,000 crore for COVID-19 vaccines is committed to ensuring fast rollout of mass vaccination and restoring normalcy. This is also expected to give much impetus to the travel & tourism industry in the coming year.

Moreover, the privatization of airlines, allocation of 1.10 lakh crore outlay for railways and boost to infrastructure development such as the development of new highway projects is a welcome step that would lead the economy to a new growth trajectory. However, we were looking for some measures related to the travel & hospitality sector such as awarding infrastructure status to the hospitality industry and reducing the GST rate on hospitality which have not been addressed in the budget. These reforms would have helped in the revival of this industry, as it has been severely battered by the pandemic.