Budget sets tone for higher growth trajectory, job creation

New Delhi: India Inc on Thursday welcomed the Narendra Modi government's maiden budget, saying it sets the tone for attaining higher growth trajectory, job creation and attracting much-needed investments for an economy grappling with multiple challenges.

"I think the approach of creating a stable business environment to attract investment and boost economic growth, that direction comes across clearly," CII President Ajay Shriram said.

"I am very happy personally by his (Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's) focus on job creation. I think that is something which is crucial for a country like India. clearly," he added.

Presenting his maiden Budget, Jaitley on Thursday said the prevailing economic situation presents a great challenge and there was a need to introduce fiscal prudence that will lead to fiscal consolidation and assuring investors that retrospective amendments to tax laws will be undertaken with extreme caution, Jaitley said all fresh cases arising out of the 2012 amendment of I-T Act will be looked into by a high level CBDT committee.

"One of our key priorities was to see a clear course of action to end tax adventurism. The government has tried to address this by promising to not to change any of the tax provisions retrospectively which creates a fresh liability and committing to provide a stable and predictable taxation regime that will be investor friendly and spur growth," said Ficci President Sidharth Birla.

"The FY15 Union Budget makes a fervent pitch for attaining a balance by creating growth, preserving an ideal level of deficit, and destroying (supply side) inflation," Assocham President Rana Kapoor said.

Terming the budget as "pragmatic and extensive", CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said that it "lays out a medium-term vision for the economy and meets industry expectations on growth and employment creation".

"We believe that the Budget would set the tone for quick recovery of GDP growth and generation of new jobs and hope that it will be followed up by close monitoring and implementation of announcements," he added.

Echoing similar sentiments, PHD Chamber President Sharad Jaipuria said: "The Budget is encouraging on building consumers', investors' and general confidence and aims at enhancing growth, creating additional employment opportunities and containing inflation with the desired focus on garnering much needed investments, both public and private".

HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh said: "Infrastructure funding had become a bad word for banks. Banks were not willing to fund. With this move, an out of the box thinking will enable long term lending for infrastructure sector".

K V Kamath, Non Executive Director at ICICI Bank said: "The budget shows that the government is willing to listen and then state that they will act in due course".

PTI