Budget has nothing much for SME sector: CII

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Vaneeta Punchvedi | 18 Feb, 2014
The interim budget for 2014-15 presented by Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Monday has nothing much to offer to the Indian small and medium enterprise sector, according to the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

"This budget is not having anything for the SMEs. SMEs are suffering from various drawbacks like lack of technology, workforce, loans and many more and in this condition this sector needs special care but this interim budget is empty hand for the MSMEs, they have to wait for next revised budget," CII vice president Sumit Mazumder told SME Times.

In a similar tone, chairman of Feedback Infrastructure Pvt Ltd and member of CII Vinayak Chatterjee said "There is not much for SME sector in this budget they will only get benefited by the reduction of service tax and excise duty because it will help them in increasing their technology."

This is a political budget, CII viewed, though added that it will be beneficial for industry sector as per as moves such as excise duty cut of 2 percent and service tax cut to some extent.

Adi Godrej, Chairman of Godrej Industries and member of CII is also not much happy with this interim budget's approach to the SME sector. "There is not much for this sector in this budget as this is a interim budget and just for 4 months, but reduction in excise duty is good sign for SMEs,â he said.

However, CII director general Chandrajit Banerjee pointed out that as a interim budget, there was not much scope for the finance minister to offer more for the SME sector.

"It is an interim budget and FM does all that efforts which he can do. Reduction in excise duty is quite beneficial for the sector," he said.

CII's President S Gopalakrishanan is convenvencied with this intrim budget he says" On behalf of the CII I must thank finanace minister for recognising this need and reducing the excise in some most of the affected subsectors of manufacturing. The reduction of in excise duty on sectors such as automobiles, capital goods and consumer elecronics is indeed welcome, as this will help revive demand in these sectors"