Industry & Economy
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Budget
Balanced approach, says Bangalore Chamber
Our Bureau
Bangalore, Feb. 29 The Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce (BCIC) has welcomed the Budget proposals for 2008-09 as a balanced approach adopted by the Union Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, and said viewed against the challenges in terms of keeping up growth and containing inflation within a framework of inclusiveness, he has done a commendable job.
BCIC has commended the creation of a non-profit corporation with a corpus of Rs 15,000 crore for helping skills development programmes. Steps for the insurance cover of unorganised workers in the BPL category, greater allocation to the National Housing Development Programme, creation of new handloom clusters, increase in allocation under the TUF will benefit industry as well as the vulnerable sections, said Mr John M. Panikar, President of BCIC.
The BCIC is, however, disappointed that the IT and ITES sector, which is an important part of our economy has not received the necessary attention in terms of continuation of the tax holiday expiring in 2009 at a time when the sector badly needs some relief in view of the hardening rupee and downward pressure on exports anticipated due to the global slowdown, though there have been some concessions in customs duty for products used by the IT industry.
The raising of the short-term capital gains tax to 15 per cent will have negative impact on the already volatile capital market.
The measure to reduce the general CENVAT rate from 16 to 14 per cent was a good step, which will help improve the manufacturing sector.
The creation of the coal regulator along with the proposed reform to the coal and electricity sector and the national fund for T&D was good news.
The creation of the risk capital fund in the SIDBI for the benefit of the micro, small and medium enterprises would help the sector shore up their performance.
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