Experts predict important announcements for real estate and SME sectors

Budget 2024 expectations live: Watch this space for the latest updates on the expectations for the EU Budget 2024

ABP Information Office
Last updated:

Jul 18, 2024 09:13 AM

Expert calls for budget to promote improved IT infrastructure for SMEs

Ratish Pandey, founder and business coach at Ethique Advisory, believes that it would be beneficial to include provisions in the upcoming Union Budget to promote improved IT infrastructure for SMEs. He suggests considering a “one-time” relief on expenditure on IT hardware and software investments, which would enable SMEs to leverage new technology tools such as CRM, AI and efficient supply chain systems.

Healthcare Sector Wish List for Budget 2024

The budget should aim to increase the healthcare sector’s share of GDP to around 5 per cent in the next few years, says Dr Sanjeev Singh, medical director, Amrita Hospital, Faridabad. He added, “The budget should allocate funds for research in cutting-edge areas like genomics, personalised medicine and artificial intelligence in healthcare. The budget must include provisions for training and development programmes for doctors, nurses, technicians and support staff.”

Real estate sector expects growth-oriented budget

Amit Goyal, Managing Director, India Sotheby’s International Realty, expects the announcements to promote equity investment and boost foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into India. “One of the measures that will benefit both the industry and homebuyers is the introduction of stand-alone deduction for mortgage loan repayments, along with increasing the tax deduction on mortgage interest from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 5 lakh,” he said.

Background

2024 Budget Expectations Live: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is all set to present the Budget for the fiscal year 2024-25 in Parliament on July 23. This will be the first full Union Budget of the Modi government 3.0 and the common man, like India Inc., has great expectations from it. As per the official notification, the Budget session of the Parliament is scheduled to begin on July 22 and end on August 12.

As per tradition, the Union Budget will be presented by Sitharaman on July 23 at 11 am.

The Union Budget speech will be delivered in the Lok Sabha at 11 am. It will be telecast live on various government channels, including national broadcaster Doordarshan, Parliament channels and Government of India YouTube channels. Sansad TV will also cover the event. To watch the Budget speech online and access the Budget documents, viewers can visit the official portal www.indiabudget.gov.in, where the live streaming and critical documents will be available.

Several industry leaders have shared their expectations from the upcoming budget. The Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) on Wednesday suggested that the government should streamline customs duties across sectors such as steel, solar, aluminium and lithium cells to boost domestic manufacturing.

ICC President Ameya Prabhu stressed the importance of implementing safeguard measures to support the expansion of domestic industry, especially in sectors like steel, solar, aluminium and lithium cells. Prabhu suggested, “There is a need to rationalise customs duties in these particular sectors in a holistic manner. There is huge potential to boost domestic manufacturing and make India a global manufacturing hub.”

He further advocated for correcting the inverted duty structure by reducing the duty on blended natural gas from 5 per cent to 2.5 per cent. “To increase domestic production, it is necessary to increase the duty on polymers – polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene terephthalate, polypropylene and polyesters to 10 per cent. This will help in reducing the dependence on imports and make India self-sufficient in the petrochemical segment,” he added.