The Hindu : Budget proposals fail to impress industry

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 24, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Budget proposals fail to impress industry

By Our Staff Reporter

KOCHI, JAN. 23. Several representatives of the trade and industry termed the State budget as populist and lacking in growth-oriented measures though a few welcomed the focus on IT industry. They were reacting to the budget immediately after a live view session of its presentation in the Assembly, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here today.

K.K.M. Kutty, regional chairman, CII Southern Region, said the Government should make it clear whether it planned to sell off PSUs. The proposal to have more checkposts would only result in more corruption, according to him.

Terming the budget as a statistical jugglery, O.T.S. Nambiar, joint director (Marketing), Spices Board, said only cosmetic changes had been proposed in the tax structure. The budget would not help the reform process. Agriculture did not get the required focus. Pepper exports, which gave several crores as revenue to the government, have been neglected, though fund allocation for biotechnology was a positive development, according to him.

The environment-friendly food-processing sector, which had bright prospects in the State, has been given a raw deal, according to Varghese Thomas, managing director of a confectionary manufacturing firm. About 2,000 small units were closed in the recent past, but no rehabilitation package had been announced, he said.

N. Sreekumar, chairman, CII Kerala, and head of Kerala factories of Apollo Tyres Limited, feared that the additional tax on lotteries would give scope for a scam. The funds allocated to the KINFRA and other bodies for infrastructure development was negligible, he said. On the whole, the budget lacked foresight, according to him.

S.R. Nair, founder & CEO, Team E-Biz Limited, was of the opinion that though there was no specific allotment to fast-track development of infrastructure, sops such as cut in duty on mobile phones and computers were welcome. The proposed reforms in the coir sector would be welcome if they were properly implemented, according to Manavalan L. Paul, Managing Director of Plants (India) Machines Limited.

P.M. Muraleedharan, president, Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry, said the welfare measures envisaged in the Budget like heart foundation, Mangalya insurance project, etc. and the special thrust given to sectors like tourism, information technology, biotechnology and education as well as streamlining the power distribution system are welcome. The reduction in the sales tax rate for mobile phone is a step in the right direction.

The budget has ignored the small-scale industrial sector, according to the Kerala State Small Industries Association.

In a statement, the association president, Xavier Thomas Kondody, said the budget has not allocated funds for measures to revive the SSI as mentioned in the industrial policy of the Government. The budget had no proposals for the revival of sick industries, interest-free loans and special subsidies for backward districts.

The Kerala Textile and Garments Dealers Welfare Association said the budget proposals are a setback to the textiles sectors. The imposition of entry tax on textiles was unfair to the textile dealers, the association's general secretary, K. Krishnan said in a statement.

The CITU criticised the cut in budgetary allocation for coir and handloom. The CITU State secretary, P. K. Gurudasan, said that the budgetary allocation for coir and handloom, which was Rs. 12.10 crores and Rs 24.79 crores respectively in the Finance Minister's previous budget, had come down to Rs 7.90 crores and Rs.9.97 crores. Moreover, the budgetary allocations made in the last budget for these sectors remained largely unspent, he added.

The Malabar Chamber of Commerce found the budget disappointing since in its view it does not lay enough thrust on development and its huge deficit is likely to be detrimental to the State economy in the long run. A welcome feature of the budget, the Chamber president, J. A. Majeed, remarked, was absence of new tax proposals.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala