Bakul Dholakiya, Jaynarayan Vyas laud Narendra Modi government's maiden budget

VADODARA: Former director of IIM-Ahmedabad Bakul Dholakiya, and former Gujarat health minister Jaynarayan Vyas today described the Narendra Modi government's maiden budget as positive for the industry and growth.
"With a strong focus on infrastructure, connectivity and with the (promised) roll-out of Goods and Service Tax (GST), the Finance Minister (Arun Jaitley) has given a boost to the growth momentum, making it easier for businesses to operate," Dholakia said at a seminar on budget here.

The budget, presented by Jaitley earlier this month, will revive the industrial growth, he added.

"While we welcome his stand on retrospective tax policy and intent to finalise GST this year, the current government has the potential and mandate to take a stronger stance on subsidy and policy," Dholakia said.

Vyas hailed the budget saying that Jaitley has made "pragmatic choices around available resources and has articulated a roadmap towards reducing the fiscal deficit and fuelling economic growth".

"While all of us hope he achieves the ambitious target of containing the fiscal deficit, executing it seems very challenging," Vyas said. "Arun Jaitley is the first finance minister who has given commitment to bring down fiscal deficit to 3 per cent, and achieve 8 per cent GDP growth within three years. His focus on giving fillip to the infrastructure seems exhaustive and he has rightfully protected the common man's interests in his first budget," Vyas said.

"Overall, I would view this budget as giving a positive push to industries across the board and auguring well for IT industry as well," he added.