Vox pop: Bengaluru pins hope on Union Budget - 2019

BENGALURU: Defence
India is distinctively positioned to create an exciting defence manufacturing ecosystem that can help us achieve self-reliance. Given that national security is a crucial agenda for the re-elected government, we believe the new budget will maintain the various policies and spending schemes allotted as per the interim budget in February, keeping defence within India’s high priority focus area. As India’s political and economic goals grow, it needs to encourage and invest in strong indigenous manufacturing capabilities and infrastructure to protect its ambition for autonomy in the Defence and Aviation industry. We expect at least 10 – 12% favourable hike in the defence budget as the sector is in real need of infrastructure development and transformation.
Sharadhi Babu, Chief Executive Officer, AXISCADES

Real Estate
With the Modi Government taking full charge, all sectors have pinned high hopes from the finance minister — who is already saddled with multiple issues including the slowing economy, liquidity crunch due to NBFC crisis, among others. Without compromising on fiscal prudence, the Finance Ministry will have to present a budget that is not only inclusive, but also assures growth across industries. Since real estate is one of the major contributors to the GDP growth, it is naturally expected that the upcoming budget will help the industry.  Besides the usual demand for single-window clearance and industry status for real estate projects, what should ideally be included in the budget are further tax sops to homebuyers as well as investors. 
Anuj Puri, Chairman - ANAROCK Property Consultants

Electric vehicles
‘As a manufacturer, we would like the Centre to review the current taxation framework applicable on raw material and the final product. A comprehensive GST refund structure of electric vehicle manufacturers or a reduced GST liability on the raw material should be assessed for seamless cash flows in the long run. For end consumers, the FAME 2 incentive distribution to individuals is limited to only one vehicle per category, but in a country where most households own multiple two wheelers, this will limit adoption. Under the Phased Manufacturing Project, the timeline to source indigenous electric motors has been set as April 2020. This will need to be extended by 6-9 months to account for the validation and certification of the components and the vehicles. 
Tarun Mehta, CEO, Co-founder, Ather Energy

Education 
The future of the Indian professional sector, especially IT and IT services, hangs on how soon they can adopt the skills relevant to future economies. Investments in skills and education can be directly mapped to a country’s commitment to economic growth, and at the moment, a re-skilling allowance for all tax-paying individuals can be a catalyst for faster and wider adoption of skills. There is already talk of the government planning on incentivising corporates to invest in skilling their workforce, but a rebate that treat skills on par with allowances such as HRA, LTA, DA is the need of the hour to help retain our country’s reputation as a skill powerhouse. Also, a re-classification of re-skilling in GST to treat it as a necessity and not a luxury would help accelerate up-skilling among Indian professionals.”
Vineet Chaturvedi, Co-founder, Edureka

Startups
The angel tax caused a lot of heartburn in the ecosystem. While the tax was abolished, we should be careful of any policy that hurts the startup ecosystem. In this day and age of technology, a lot of the innovation will be seen from startups rather than larger established companies. Anything that hampers this innovation will hamper India’s future growth. The government should do everything in its power to help fuel innovation in India and ban policies that hamper such future growth. Most non-salaried people find smart ways to avoid paying tax. Of the salaried, majority of the people paying tax are in the lower rung. Instead if we could increase the lowest tax bracket from 2.5 lakhs to 6 lakhs, that could help increase disposable income for the majority. Taxes could shift more towards consumption rather than on earnings. 
Aprameya Radhakrishna, Co-founder at Vokal