Mr. Sanjay Chamria, VC & MD, Magma Fincorp Ltd.

Keeping in line with the need to boost investments to spur growth in the economy, the 15% Investment allowance for entities investing over Rs.100 cr is a great step forward.  In my view it will have been appropriate for this to be extended to the MSME segment as well to further boost the dormant investment cycle.

In the budget, the Finance Minister has continued with his focus on Agriculture through higher target of Rs7 lac crores for agriculture credit, continuation of interest subvention scheme and extending the same to private sector banks,  22% increase in budget allocations to Ministry of Agriculture, These and other steps will help  boost rural economy and in turn will help companies well positioned in the interiors of the country.

While overall the budget has moved in the direction of reducing fiscal deficit, more credible steps on reduction in subsidies to help reduce inflation, lower interest rates and increase the growth in the economy would be our expectations from the government going forward.

N. Chandramouli, CEO, Trust Research Advisory

I would say that its basically an average kind of approach from the Finance Minister towards SMEs. I am happy that the capital market access is opened to SMEs, but at the same time government should have facilitated more finance allocations and access to the sector. In connection with taxation, I think SMEs will suffer by the present stand especially in the present global economic conditions. The third think which I expected that there should be a fund allocation for a government sponsored training institute to fine tune skill sets. To sum up the capital access is a positive thing to note.