Industry leaders share what they liked in Budget 2021

Finance Minister's third Budget speech managed to enthuse Indian corporate sector. Industry leaders praised the steps to provide tax relief to senior citizens, encourage expenditure for infrastructure development and emphasis on healthcare in Union Budget 2021-22.

"A Budget for growth with next-gen reforms. Focus on healthcare, infra, financial sector. A stable tax regime, higher borrowings for capex. Specific reforms: disinvestment & monetization, opening up of insurance, cleanup plan for stressed assets. Sign of a self confident India."

Uday Kotak, CEO, Kotak Mahindra Bank

"In a time of unprecedented economic stress, the Govt's responsibility was to spend enough to revive the economy or else face enormous human suffering. So I had one expectation from this budget: that we should be very liberal in terms of the targeted fiscal deficit. Box ticked."

Anand Mahindra, Mahindra Group Chairman

"Globally, spending on healthcare infrastructure and vaccine have given countries and their economies the best bang for their buck. Investments in these areas have prevented hospitalizations and resulted in a healthier and more productive workforce, thereby leading to an efficient economy. Therefore we welcome the FM's emphasis on healthcare spending, and immunisation especially for COVID-19 and the pneumococcal vaccines as this will help India recover rapidly from this pandemic. Hopefully, this will also encourage more innovation and expansion in the sector."

Adar poonawalla, CEO, Serum Institute of India

"Combination of Pujara & Pant innings - consistency and flamboyance! Steady focus on infra, commercial laws, ease of business with big shots of monetising PSU assets, new divestments, insurance FDI. India won in Australia. Now India shall rise above in new world order! #Budget2021."

Harsh Goenka, Chairman, RPG Enterprises

"This was unequivocally a good budget - focused on short term growth in the right areas, without disruptive taxation.   A thoughtful one, for extraordinary times.  The magic is in execution now. "

Radhika Gupta, MD& CEO, Edelweiss Mutual Fund

"The income tax filing exemption granted to senior citizens, who rely on only pension and interest income, will significantly reduce their tax compliance burden. The announcement of a faceless dispute resolution system should help taxpayers by fast-tracking the resolution process. The pre-filled capital gains and interest income in ITRs will make income tax filing easier for retail investors. Overall, these measures announced in the budget will simplify the lives of small taxpayers and are welcome."

Lalit Keshre, Co-founder and CEO, Groww

"Though real estate has not got anything directly from this budget, there are announcements that will indirectly help the sector. Allotment of a massive capital expenditure corpus in order to enhance and support national highway projects, roads and other ancillary infrastructure shows the continued commitment of the government to strengthen connectivity across the country which in turn will largely improve real estate over the next few years."

Surendra Hiranandani, Chairman and Managing Director, House of Hiranandani

"The Budget 2021 holds out various positives for the start-up sector. The move towards providing social security benefits for gig workers will add a much-needed safety net that will help this sector grow in a sustainable way and help the many millions that are a part of it."

Kunal Bahl, CEO & Co-founder , Snapdeal

"The start-up community welcomes the move of FM on proposing the incorporation of one-person companies with no restriction in paid-up capital and turnover, as well as on decriminalization of limited liability partnerships, with the flexibility to convert a company to any form or LLP. This will benefit thousands of start-ups as it will ease the compliance burden."

Kapil Jain, Founder of Mumbai-based start-up Graphitto Labs.