Union Budget 2019: Expectations from Indian Organizations including Startups

New Delhi, July 03, 2019- India’s much awaited Union Budget for the fiscal year 2019-20 will be presented by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on July 05, 2019. This budget is expected to lay focus on start-up eco-system in the country and announce various incentives for the next few years.

Here are some of the organizations in India including start-ups with their expectations from this year’s budget (Fiscal 2019-20)

Sangeet
Modi, Co-Founder & Director, IndiaMoneyMart: “NBFC-P2P
provides a pool of opportunities to both the lenders and the borrowers to
engage in business. P2P model is a solution for many small businesses that are
struggling for funds. Digital lending has changed the face of many developing
countries’ economies because of the transparent environment and paperless
approvals.

So,
from the perspective of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) industry in India, it has tremendous
opportunities because this industry is still at a nascent stage and requires
encouragement through tax benefits.

Tax
benefits can be provided on the interest income from peer-to-peer (P2P) lending
business that will encourage investors to invest in this business. We also
demand relaxation in norms to allow NRIs to be lenders on the platform and the interest
income should be repatriable.

At
this point, bad Loans are not good for the health of P2P industry and should be
allowed to be adjusted against the interest income through P2P until the
industry has settled in. It’s not only about business but a P2P lending
revolution can help Financial Inclusion to a great extent.”

N
Nagasatyam, Executive Director, Olectra Greentech: “We
strongly believe that the EV (Electric Vehicles) adoption in our country
certainly needs support from the government. Though the long-term benefits of
EVs are multi-fold still the relatively higher cost of acquisition of an EV is
a bottleneck in its adoption. We expect the government to include Electric
Vehicles in Priority lending sector so that the prospective buyers can be
encouraged to move towards this environment friendly transport option. The
financial assistance will help in compensating the cost difference of the EVs
making it more attractive for the buyers.”

Uttam
Malani, Executive Director, Centuary Mattresses: “We
feel that the industry sentiment is currently low and a stimuli may be needed
to accelerate the economy back onto the growth track. Reforms in the housing
sector, and government spending on healthcare & education should be a focus
area. Stability in the policies is extremely critical to encourage the business
owners to take calculated risks and generate more employment. Sustained
initiatives to incentivise environment protection and sustainability should be
rolled out in the larger interest of the people.”

Hari
Thalapalli, Chief Executive Officer, CallHealth: “Over
the last few years, the Indian healthcare sector has witnessed a major overhaul
in order to attain the Prime Minister’s goal of ‘Healthcare for all’. This
year, we are looking forward to some measures from the Government that
incentivize HealthTech companies to improve the accessibility and affordability
of quality healthcare. With more people adopting technology for various needs,
it will be most appropriate if the government’s health policy will accelerate
the adoption of technology to address the unmet medical needs for millions. In
this budget we are hoping to have clearer policies around different segments of
heath-tech including e-pharmacy, remote monitoring of patients, digital
prescriptions and video consultations. We are excited to see a positive turn
out from the Government to encourage start-ups across all domains, particularly
in Healthcare”.

Radhika
Choudary, Co-Founder and Director, Freyr Energy: “Renewable
energy has a lot of importance these days, especially Solar. Though subsidies
are provided to some of the customer categories but instead of that we would
recommend an income tax benefit which is an easier way for the government to
monitor and monetize the current action plan. These would benefit an
individual, residential, commercial or an industrial customer as they don’t
have any Income Tax benefits to go solar at this point.

In
current times, water and power are the two things we must conserve very
efficiently, hence, we would expect government to mandate the industrial
establishments to have Solar as a certain percentage of their power mix.

The
net metering policy announced by the Central Government are witnessing
implementation issues at the State level hence transparency in the same is very
much required to see the desired results.”

Rahul
Paith, Chief Operating Officer, DocOnline: “For Healthcare
Industry, I believe there are 3 areas that need immediate attention in this
budget.

First
of it being the Public Private partnerships – Ayushman Bharat was a great
initiative by the Government of India that was much required for the country.
But in order to realize its full potential and maximize the benefits, there is
a need of enhanced fund allocation and introduction of PPP models for larger
participation from private players, as 80% of the healthcare services in the
country are provided by the private sector. PPP models would not only ensure a
business boost for the private sector including the start-ups but will also
contribute to nation’s growth.

Second
key area would be the GST benefits which also need to be extended to the
start-ups and other players in the healthcare sector, beyond the core
healthcare service providers. Due to its absence, we are not able to capitalize
on the pass-through benefits. While we pay GST when we procure anything for our
business we are GST free when sell the services to customer. Resulting in a
cost burden for us. In industries like IT, there is input and output GST which
provides a balance.

Third
important aspect is the ‘Angel Tax’ – Government needs to take solid steps to
reduce this burden for start-ups. Getting an investment in the current economic
scenario is not easy. Angel Tax deduction from the difficultly brought in
investment greatly hurts the start-ups.

Overall,
healthcare as an industry touches each and every citizen of the country and
people have been seeking positive reforms for the sector. We expect the
government to take it as a priority area this budget, allocate more funds,
announce steps that encourage private sector and start-ups to do business and
provide quality services to every section of the society”.

Ameen
Khwaja, Co-Founder and CEO, PTron: “In the upcoming budget, we
look forward to seeing some steps from the government to promote local
manufacturing and tax reforms. One of the critical campaigns like Make in India
is already transforming India into a global manufacturing hub however an equal
focus should be kept on implementing Skill India Mission to fulfil the growing
need of skilled manpower to sustain the manufacturing entities.

Adding
more jobs to rural economy that is currently suffering due to agrarian distress
would definitely help in employment generation as well as better spending
capacities.

And,
since GST is evidently helping India progress financially, the government
should further ease the GST norms encouraging more commercial establishments to
register and add to the GST collections. Lowering the Income tax rates would
help in increased purchasing capacity and with the growth in consumption, the
indirect tax earning of the government would increase. Currently, 21% of
government spending is borne by earnings through individual income tax. This
can be compensated to some extent by indirect taxes that stand to benefit with
increased consumption due to fall in individual tax burden. I think this is
something that government should definitely explore.”

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