A budget to fire up all growth engines: Kumar Birla

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and members of the finance ministry at North Block in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Photo: Bloomberg)
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and members of the finance ministry at North Block in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Photo: Bloomberg)

Summary

This is a bold and imaginative budget that reignites the animal spirits in the economy.

Budget 2022 is a landmark budget that can rev up all engines of economic growth, including capital and consumer expending and exports. The budget has several important initiatives that will provide an impetus to the ‘Make in India’ agenda in general, particularly the resurgence of India’s exports.

For several years, India’s export growth has been tepid. This fiscal, though, we have seen splendid growth on the back of restocking demand and robust global growth. Recognizing this potential of exports being a key and sustainable driver of growth, the budget has made it a centrepiece.

First is clearly the continued thrust on upgrading India’s infrastructure. The budget reinforces the credibility and visibility of the ambitious National Infrastructure Pipeline—with an unprecedented 35% jump in the provision for the Centre’s capital expenditure. Given the government’s stated intentions, one always expected infrastructure allocations to increase. But the extent of the increase budgeted for FY23, coming on the base of already higher expenditure this year, has been a hugely positive surprise.

This large and upfront commitment from the government will encourage private investors and set the stage for creating a future-ready infrastructure. Inadequate infrastructure, high logistics costs and related delays have long been a bone of contention for Indian manufacturers and exporters. One, therefore, looks forward to a step improvement in the competitiveness of the Indian industry over the coming years.

The second aspect pertains to the various tweaks that have been made to customs duties; these are broadly pragmatic interventions to support value addition and jobs creation in Indian manufacturing. These tweaks include gradual rationalization of those customs duty concessions and exemptions that were affecting the competitiveness of local manufacturers and certain reduction in duty rates on inputs used by export-intensive sectors.

The third is the announcement regarding new legislation for special economic zones (SEZs). The SEZ concept, which India adopted many years ago, sought to create large pockets of export-intensive activities, supported by world-class infrastructure and a favourable duty structure. SEZs scripted the early part of China’s success story in manufacturing exports, and India aimed to replicate it. Unfortunately, SEZs could not become a significant engine of exports for India.

While the details of the proposed rejig of India’s SEZ model are not known, the budget speech talks about enabling state governments to become an important partner in the scheme and improving the ease of doing business for exporters in SEZs.

Besides these announcements, the budget also contains proposals for expanding the production-linked incentives scheme, stepping up domestic procurement of defence equipment and extending the timeline for availing lower corporate tax by new manufacturing entities.

All these proposals will help in realizing India’s manufacturing potential. In addition, India’s ongoing initiatives on striking trade agreements with major markets of India’s labour-intensive manufacturing sectors will be a further catalyst. In light of this budget’s proposals, one looks forward to strengthening India’s manufacturing backbone, supporting the overall economic vitalism and creating quality jobs for Indian youth.

This budget is futuristic in many ways. Going through the finance minister’s speech, one realizes that the government of India is possibly as enthusiastic about digitization as the private corporate sector is, if not more.

It talks about digital tools and platforms for delivering health services, skills development programmes, and monitoring the PM Gati Shakti programme.

The government will promote the use of ‘Kisan drones’ for crop assessment, land records and spraying of insecticides.

The budget also mentions the launch of the ‘digital rupee’ by the Reserve Ban of India in FY23, which will make India among a handful of countries with their own central bank-issued digital currency using blockchain technology.

India will also be launching Sovereign Green Bonds this year, again being among one of the pioneers. All these initiatives seed India’s adoption of leading technologies and practices.

Overall, this is a bold and imaginative budget that reignites the animal spirits in the economy and invests in India’s future. The economy is already showing signs of a very strong rebound, and the budget will sharply accelerate the wheels of economic activity.

I will be watching the economy take off.

Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman, Aditya Birla Group

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