Business News›Magazines›Panache›What women bosses want this Budget: Menstrual hygiene awareness, opportunities for shepreneurs, hassle-free tax compliance
NEW DELHI: With just a week left for the Union Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is getting ready to pull Indian economy out of the slump.
Women Inc believe that the Government could use this year's Budget to give a long-term strategic direction and trigger key reforms that are crucial for a sustainable economic growth.
From boosting the start-up ecosystem to providing tax relief on raw material used to make menstrual products, women business leaders have some suggestions for the Government to consider this Budget season.
Anika Parashar, CEO of RockVentures, and Chairperson & Founder of Organ India "The primary focus of the Union Budget is to promote inclusive growth in the country. However, women wellness - especially menstrual hygiene - is an area that needs to be emphasised.
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Anika Parashar emphasised on the need of women wellness for this year's Budget. "To go green in the future, the government should encourage the use of biodegradable menstrual products. This one initiative could bring down the number of disposable sanitary napkins adding to the landfill, which currently stands at 12.3 billion annually. The government could support start-ups who are endeavouring to offer biodegradable products at affordable prices, keeping in mind the current condition of the environment.
"Although the sanitary napkins are tax-free, the expenditure incurred in their production is still taxable. Decreasing import duty for raw materials could help such start-ups to stretch themselves in the market, meeting the public demand.
"The government should also take measures on educating and teaching women the importance of hygiene during periods, pregnancy, menopause, post-partum depression, polycystic ovary syndrome, mental health issues and other general health-related issues."
Daksha Baxi, Head - International Tax, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas "Measures are needed to spur export activities rather than reduce any taxes. There are a number of reasons why exports are not happening. These need to be urgently identified and the difficulties should be removed. Provide incentives by way of cost reductions for export inputs. Ground level compliance and regulatory difficulties are a major reason for lack of small industries not being set up.
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Daksha Baxi demands for cost reductions in export inputs. "The areas and sectors need to be identified and processes streamlined, made transparent for activities to take place. Tax is not the only incentive. As soon as tax incentives are introduced, there would be litigation since people would be creative to seek the incentives and tax officers will deny them.
"Most important is to make tax and regulatory compliance hassle free and transparent. Land acquisition, leases, licenses need to be made easy, and stamp duties need to be reduced. AOP tax needs to be dismantled as it renders itself to huge litigation, especially for EPC.
"Agro-based industries need to be given infra status to get more benefits. Farmers who travel abroad and have expensive cars and financial investment above a certain threshold should be taxed on their agricultural income at the lowest tax rate.
"All tax provisions should be drafted such that no substantive change is made for at least three years. The only changes should be made is clarificatory for removing difficulties in implementation."
Meha Bhargava, CEO & Founder, Styl.Inc Image Management Consultants "The Government has been focusing on the empowerment of women right from its first tenure. The Government has introduced various innovative yet essential schemes for women such as ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Yojana’ (for protection and safety of the girl child), ‘Sukanya Samriddhi Scheme’ (to build corpus for the girl child), and ‘Mahila-e-Haat’ (for facilitating the online showcase of their products and providing a direct contact between the vendors and the buyers.
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Meha Bhargava hopes that the Budget helps in creating more opportunities for the potential business women in India. "I hope that the Budget helps in creating more opportunities for the potential business women in India.
"In her maiden Budget speech last year, Sitharaman had said that ‘The role of women is a very sweet story in India’s growth, particularly in the rural economy. The government wishes to encourage and facilitate the role of women in India’s growth story’. Considering the woman steered focus, I think the FM may allocate funds in new schemes and committees to overlook the existing ones as the Government announces initiatives for women empowerment in every Budget. This year, it is essential that the Government should focus more on proper implementation of existing schemes than introducing new schemes.
"In the interim budget, there was an increase in the gender budget allocation to Rs 1,31,700 crore as against Rs 1,21,961 crore in 2018-19. Last year's interim FM Piyush Goyal had emphasised on formation of women specific schemes making 100 per cent allocation for women only. The government may increase the allocation for women-focus schemes."
India Inc Gets Budget-Ready; Ronnie Screwvala, Cleartrip Boss, Spykar Lifestyle CEO Share W...
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The Countdown Begins
17 Jan, 2020
It's that time of the year when all eyes are on the Finance Minister. Dalal Street, India Inc, tax-paying individuals, consumers, traders - almost everyone is looking at Nirmala Sitharaman with hope. This Budget, that comes in the wake of a slowdown, and muted consumer spending, is the first one that's being presented by the Narendra Modi government after storming back to power in the Lok Sabha elections last year. As the countdown begins, here's a look at what India Inc has on their wishlist from Ms Sitharaman this time.
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Ronnie Screwvala, Chairman & Co-founder, upGrad
16 Jan, 2020
This Budget has to herald the clear road map towards $5 trillion & 3rd largest economy in the world or else we are out of time. The Budget in India always needs to have a strong balance of populist and development of rural India but this time it needs to focus on the other half that can propel India. It is going to be about taking very hard calls. Three initiatives (amongst many others) in the Budget that can really move the needle are: First, a clear plan for the Government to be out of the business of things, privatisation of most sectors has to get to 10x of present plan. This would lead to massive monetisation for the exchequer but also bring about massive efficiency into large sectors. The Government needs to think big and therefore look to privatise and exit profit-making businesses too and not just the loss-making ones. A one-time movement on this can change the pace and scale of the economy and hurtle us towards $5 trillion goal. Secondly, one sector that would move the needle for GDP amongst all others - it would be for us to make a blueprint to take tourism to 10x of its present levels in the next 5 years. It can be the largest employer for the country, bring in more foreign exchange than the 35 million migrant Indians repatriating money back home and can be a game changer for India’s perception in the world. The blueprint has to be a big one from infrastructure that allows private sector to create best places to stay and travel. We already have the best sites in the world but, alas, they are poorly maintained and even more poorly marketed. Lastly, we need to be the entrepreneurial capital of the world in the 2020 decade: a clear goal where we need to simplify doing business, making, starting and running a corporate in India easier than anywhere in the world. We cannot celebrate improving 20 positions of ranking in the ease of doing business and get to 100th! Need to move straight to the top 10 nations where it’s easy to do business. Need to open up all sectors with a stop to the constant regulatory changes that makes it most difficult to build anything of scale in India for any entrepreneur. If we can create half a million entrepreneurs a year that creates 10 new jobs each, no one can stop India’s path to be in the top three economies of the world. As I said, it’s time to take hard calls.
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Indroneel Dutt, CFO, Cleartrip
17 Jan, 2020
Since the past decade, India has established itself as one of the fastest-growing travel markets across the globe. We, as a nation, are poised to become the third-largest market by 2025 given the secular growth trends. It is essential to ensure that infrastructural inadequacies do not fetter the growth of the industry. The government should make provisions for boosting the domestic infrastructure towards global benchmarks in the upcoming Budget.We are also hopeful that the Government will take cognisance and resolve challenges for the aviation industry which has already seen a tough year in 2019. For one, out of all the stakeholders in the aviation ecosystem, airlines operate with the most paper-thin margins. This, coupled with TCS (Tax collection at source), ends up hampering the working capital of airlines, giving rise to numerous operational difficulties. These obstacles are not only affecting the stakeholders and service providers, but the consumers as well. We are optimistic that the Government will continue to be open-minded and maintain the impetus of its past initiatives while bringing necessary reformations to further enable the travel sector.
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Sanjay Vakharia, CEO, Spykar Lifestyle
17 Jan, 2020
The clothing and lifestyle industry thrives on sentiments and the same are at its lowest as we speak. We expect in all earnest that the Government will make certain announcements in the Budget which can spur demand by placing more disposable income in the hands of the consumers. Our economy has a large consumer base and once the momentum is built, there should be no stopping us.
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Rahul Agarwal, CEO, Organic Harvest
16 Jan, 2020
The current rate of 5% at which the Indian economy is reeling is a major concern. The two engines for growth of the economy are consumption and investment. I believe the thrust of the Government should be directed towards the revival of these two pillars - consumption and investment - in capital projects. Improvement in sentiments and kick-starting the private capex will help in making India a favourable investment destination.
