The Hindu : Business : Industry outlines wish list

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Tuesday, Jun 02, 2009
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Business

Industry outlines wish list

Special Correspondent

Emphasis on ensuring 8-9 per cent growth rate during 2009-10

— PHOTO: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR

PRE-BUDGET EXERCISE: (from left) Harsh Pati Singhania, President, FICCI, Venu Srinivasan, President, CII, Swati Piramal, Senior Vice-President, Assocham, and Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII, before a pre-budget meeting with Finance Minister Pranab Mukrejee in New Delhi on Monday.

NEW DELHI: Indian industry on Friday was almost unanimous in outlining that the thrust of the next budget for 2009-10 should be to encourage investment and generate demand within an inclusive ambit.

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) separately emphasised that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee should aim to ensure 8-9 per cent growth rate during the current financial year and take it to 11 per cent in 2010-11. CII President Venu Srinivasan recommended that the objective of the government should be to lend an impetus to the economy that should originate internally without expecting any assistance from external forces.

Mr. Srinivasan called for what he described as an investment budget focussing on fiscal prudence, capacity creation, promoting investment and fuel consumption. He argued for innovative investments in physical and social infrastructure with a view to accelerating internal growth momentum.

FICCI President Harsh Pati Singhania too stressed on agriculture and social sector reforms to give a boost to the growth trajectory and help step up investment. Apart from agriculture and social sector, Mr. Singhania was particular about encouraging children of below poverty level families to get educated. He suggested the setting up of a finance company to provide loans and also financial benefits to enrol them in schools.

Assocham Senior Vice-President Swati Piramal said that the urgent need was to upgrade infrastructure, to improve efficiency and sustain economic growth. Dr. Piramal said that attention had to be paid to the recessionary trends across the globe as it had affected consumer confidence and demand for goods.

All these three major bodies were almost unanimous about the need to raise depreciation rates to 25 per cent, remove fringe benefit tax, do away with surcharges and cess and bring down corporate taxes besides providing relief to the general public with respect to direct taxes.

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