The Budget season is officially on, with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman holding the first of her series of pre-budget consultations on Monday. She is slated to present her second union budget in the Narendra Modi 2.0 government on February 1, 2020.
The highlight of the first day was the afternoon meeting with representatives from the financial sector, with discussions centring around the availability of easy credit from banks, making public sector banks more efficient, suggestions to overcome the crisis in the non-banking financial companies, as well as alternative investment funds for the real estate sector.
The finance minister also met reps from the technology sector, including officials of the computer hardware sector, as well as those from the fintech start-up ecosystem.
The finance minister was accompanied by the minister of state (finance) Anurag Thakur, the secretaries of finance, economic affairs and revenue, chairmen of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and the Central Board of Indirect Taxes (CBIT) and other senior officials, including the Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian.
Industry and banking stakeholders who met them include Reserve Bank deputy governor N.S.Vishwanathan, State Bank of India chairman Rajnish Kumar, LIC chairman M.R.Kumar, as well as heads or senior officials of banks like Kotak Mahindra Bank, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, Citibank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and other financial institutions.
The head honchos of the financial sector and capital markets submitted various suggestions to boost the Indian markets, including increasing credit limits from banks, improving the functioning of public sector banks, tackling the funding issues with risk capital, alleviating the stress plaguing NBFCs and finding alternative investment funds for the real estate sector.
They also discussed mutual funds, commercial papers and standardisation of bond features, promoting leasing by reducing GST, reducing GST rates on term insurance for increasing its penetration and providing easier credit to digitally active users by streamlining KYC norms.
Earlier in the day, the finance minister kicked-off the customary pre-budget consultations by meeting start-up entrepreneurs and industry body delegates from the technology sector. MAIT (Manufacturers Association of Information Technology), the industry body representing the computer hardware sector gave a memorandum pleading for the reinstatement of MEIS (merchandise export from India scheme). “Electronics exports will be hit hardest without MEIS,” said George Paul, CEO of MAIT, “Reinstating MEIS is the need of the hour.” Paul also pointed out how ease of doing business continued to remain a challenge and how government's notifications for the industry needed to get forward looking instead of being 'retrospective'.
The pre-budget meetings will go on between various sectoral reps, India Inc honchos, industry bodies and trade associations till next Monday.
