Budget 2022 Expectations from Business Leaders

Thought Habitat spoke with more business leaders across India in different industries who come with different expectations. Here are a few more business leaders and entrepreneurs who are expecting the budget to be a defense mechanism to fight the pandemic and the upcoming uncertainties.

Dawn Thomas, Co-founder, VRO Hospitality

Every budget, restaurateurs pray for just one thing, application of input GST. For some time, we have been charging on a very small part of i GST, 5%, to our customers. The government has not allowed restaurants to avail the input GST which can be set off against rent, consultancy, etc. If this is done, this would help restaurants save millions. 

Also, it is high time for the sector to come under a dedicated ministry. Over the last two years ever since the onset of the pandemic, the F&B sectors has been worst hit. This despite the fact that the F&B industry has been one of the fastest growing in the country and is one of the largest employment providers.

It is always the first to get impacted when the lockdown sets in and also the last to get recovered when lockdown is eased. Roughly the industry adds around 2-3% to the GDP and it is high time we have a dedicated ministry for the F&B sector.

Mehul Sharma, Founder & CEO, Signum Hotels & Resorts

For the revival of India’s hospitality industry, domestic tourism must flourish. Measures to promote and facilitate domestic tourism must be put in place. Government must consider steps to promote local destinations from within the country and encourage travelers to explore their own country. LTA should be increased to incentivize people to travel. We must target to achieve 15-18mn domestic tourist numbers.

The long pending demand for Hospitality to be granted an infrastructure status remains unheard. Hospitality must be recognized as an industry that contributes strongly to the country’s economy.

We would also like a review of GST. A lower GST and taxation on hospitality, food and beverage services is much needed. Also, a uniform tax structure across the board is the need of the hour. Liquidity to be made available for upcoming hospitality projects. Increased international investment in hospitality should be allowed to achieve this.

Government must create a pool of funds to improve infrastructure and tourism focused development. Tokenization as a process and use of blockchain technology to raise funds should be implemented. Low credit rates on loans extended to hospitality projects must be considered to sustain development in this sector.

Vimal Alawadhi, MD, Best Agrolife Ltd.

The Indian Agrochemical industry requires an attractive PLI scheme, along with ease of transporting with lesser intermediates within the country. These implementations can prove vital in the coming year for the industry. We also hope the government comes up with reforms to rationalize GST on agrochemicals (reduce GST 18% to 6%) to meet the objective of “Doubling Farmer’s Income”. We would also like to propose Import duties on finished products to be increased to make local producers more competitive.

The need of the hour is to make Indian products globally competitive and offer attractive incentives to export oriented domestic manufacturers for bringing a boom in the Indian agriculture market.  Government must provide financial and technical support to Indian manufacturers for backward integration, especially for import substituted intermediates that will help the industry to become a more tenacious competitor to China.

Ratish Pandey, Business & Executive Coach, Ethique Advisory

We know exactly how uncertain things are with the new wave hitting India like a tsunami. The Modi Government should do well and I hope that will be able to make adjustment to their planning (as the budget document to my knowledge would almost be ready). With the current reality in front of us the following should be the focus:

• Government schemes to support infra and job creations should continue
• Schemes led by lending banks for MSME’s / SME’s should be extended at least the end of calendar year 2022
• Continued support to the lower strata of the earning populace to ensure their well being
• For the start-ups, it has been a phenomenal year – thanks to all the brilliant ideas those scaled to India saw a huge spurt in number of unicorns. The support under the start-up India initiatives should continue and be extended by another year.
• For the Manufacturing / industrial sector specific PLI schemes has been successful. New sectors should be added

We have business leaders from different industries waiting to express their expectations for 2022 Budget. Until the day of Budget, we will have a new set of excerpts everyday. Keep watching this space.