Budget 2024 Highlights: FM disappoints investors, rewards (some) taxpayers

Budget Speech 2024 LIVE Updates: Sanjay Mandhava, Founder & CEO of Landeed, "The Government's announcement to digitize land records using GIS technology will undoubtedly save time, reduce fraud, and boost confidence among property owners, investors, and developers. This significant move towards digitization will enhance transparency and accuracy in land transactions, while also streamlining the entire property management process, fostering a more robust and trustworthy real estate market in India "

Budget Speech 2024 LIVE Updates: S Anand, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of PaySprint, said, “As we eye on the budget 2024 today, we shift our gaze to the improvements in the manufacturing and services sector, where FM Nirmala Sitharaman announced the credit support for MSMEs, increasing the loan limit from ₹10 lakh to ₹20 lakhs, especially for those, who have availed and repaid loans under Tarun Category. Enhancing the mudra loan limit is a strategic move that supports the backbone of the Indian economy. It fosters a conducive environment for growth, innovation, and competitiveness, ensuring that these enterprises can contribute robustly to the nation’s economic development.”

Hardika Shah, Founder & CEO, Kinara Capital, said, “The Union Budget has made significant strides in promoting women's economic participation. To this end, a number of initiatives were announced, supported by the allocation of more than INR 3 lakh crore for schemes benefitting women and girls. Initiatives like setting up working women’s hostels in collaboration with industries and the establishment of creches, organizing women-specific skilling programmes, and promoting market access for women SHGs are commendable steps towards addressing challenges faced by women.”

Avneet Singh Marwah, CEO of SPPL, said, “The Union Budget 2024 demonstrates a strong commitment to job creation in the manufacturing sector. By providing targeted incentives for EPFO contributions, the government aims to generate significant employment opportunities for both employers and the 30 lakh young people entering the workforce. This initiative reflects a strategic approach to meeting employment needs in our rapidly evolving economy.”

Bipin Gupta, Product Manager, EZVIZ, said, “The 2024 Union Budget brings hopeful developments for the smart home security sector. The increase in the standard deduction to ₹75,000 and the revised tax slabs—where individuals earning up to ₹3 lakh will pay no tax, and those earning between ₹3 lakh to ₹7 lakh will benefit from a 5% tax rate—are likely to increase disposable income.”

Budget Speech 2024 LIVE Updates: Aravind Maiya, Chief Executive Officer of Embassy REIT, said, “Reducing the holding period for long-term capital gains from 36 to 12 months puts us at par with listed equity shares, further popularizing the REIT asset class in India. Over the past five years, REITs have transformed the Indian real estate landscape, attracting around 2.3 lakh investors.”

Budget Speech 2024 LIVE Updates: Kumarmanglam Vijay, Partner, JSA Advocates and Solicitor, said, “As the new Government has decided to undertake a comprehensive review of the Income-tax Act, 1961 in its first Budget, it is expected to be completed and given effect within the Government’s tenure. This could be a great opportunity for this regime to leave a lasting impact by creating people-friendly provisions that could be administered with the help of technology at a lower cost of administration. This may lay the foundation for a large economic growth for the country if implemented well.”

Budget Speech 2024 LIVE: Rahul Gandhi referred to Sitharaman's Budget as a 'Kursi Bachao' Budget as he criticised it for making hollow promises to appease allies at the cost of other states, providing benefits to cronies without offering relief to the common Indian and being a copy-and-paste job from Congress manifesto and previous budgets.

Akshay Chaturvedi, Founder & CEO, Leverage.biz, said, “The financial support for loans up to ₹10 lakh for higher education and skilling loans up to ₹7.5 lakh will significantly enhance access to education and skill development for students across the country. The Prime Minister’s Package for employment and skilling, along with the three schemes announced for 'Employment Linked Incentive,' demonstrates a strong commitment to empowering youth and addressing the employment challenge."

Budget Speech 2024 LIVE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, "In the last 10 years, 25 crore people have come out of poverty. This budget is for the empowerment of the new middle class. The youth will get unlimited opportunities from this budget. Education and skill will get a new scale from this budget. This budget will give power to the new middle class. This budget will help women, small businessmen, MSMEs."

Sandeep Shah, Partner, N.A. Shah Advisors, said, “Government will have to be swift in providing guarantees for those MSME which are about to fall in Special Mention Accounts (SMA) as otherwise the lenders will have to provide for the NPA.”

T Manish, Research Analyst, SAMCO Securities, said, “Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced Research based setups for raising productivity & Developing climate resistant crops. Providing new 109 climate resistant crops in 32 categories to be developed and released. Companies like Kaveri Seeds, Dhanuka Agritech would be the beneficiaries.”

Budget Speech 2024 LIVE: Sandeep Agrawal, Director and Co-Founder, TeamLease RegTech, said, “The abolition of Angel Tax is a much-awaited move by the finance minister. This will boost the entire Start-up ecosystem and is viewed as pro-business and pro-innovation measures that will stimulate the economic growth and job creation. Steps like comprehensive digitalization of taxpayer services, simplification & rationalization of the GST tax structure, and integration of the e-shram portal with other platforms to offer a unified labour services solution, etc. indicates government’s commitment towards digitalization aimed at building transparency and enhancing ease of compliances for corporates in India.”

Vivek Iyer, Partner at Grant Thornton Bharat, said, "Digital Public Infrastructure in agriculture will provide more farmer data, enabling fintechs to access mainstream credit information. This will improve credit quality and increase financial inclusion for farmers."

Nilaya Varma, Co-Founder and CEO at Primus Partners, said, “Very happy to see skilling pivoting to being demand driven. We have always argued that government needs to incentivize the employer so that skill premium can be institutionalized and skilling ecosystem is more demand driven.”

Prashant Daftary, Partner, N.A. Shah Associates, said, “Incentives for new employment to manufacturing industries would give a significant boost to employment. The benefits and eligibility are significant to cover a large section of new employees.”

Sameer Jain, Managing Director at Primus Partners, said, “A very explicitly laid out plans on Climate Action bodes well esp. in harnessing the areas of Renewables, Agriculture, etc. PLI interventions to promote the industry in Renewables will lead to the much needed Corporate action.“

Budget Speech 2024 LIVE: T Manish, Research Analyst, SAMCO Securities, said, “The Finance Minister announces improvements in the agriculture industry by Digitizing public infrastructure for their lands within 3 years for 6 crore farmers in partnership with states. Benefiting companies like CDSL, CE Info Systems, Genesys.”

Budget Speech 2024 LIVE: Nilaya Varma, Co-Founder and CEO at Primus Partners, said, “Jobs has to be at the core of economic growth. It is glad to see jobs, skills and education at the core of the Budget speech. Translating the allocation and new initiatives into action, making it demand driven, not supply driven can only ensure success of this intent.”

Budget Speech 2024 LIVE: Defence minister Rajnath Singh said, "This Budget is unique in many ways and by clearly outlining NDA Government’s 9 key priorities for all-round and inclusive development, it has successfully elevated India’s growth trajectory. This Budget will go a long way in making India a five trillion dollar economy by 2027.

Numerous policies and programmes to support India’s farmers, youth, women and other weaker sections of the society have also been announced. Sectors like infrastructure, agriculture, banking, energy, industry, R&D, MSMEs and defence have been given special care and attention.

This budget will boost demand, create new opportunities for youth and propel India’s economy onto the global stage. I thank PM and FM for giving India a monumental push to India’s economic and social development."

Budget Speech 2024 LIVE: Home minister Amit Shah said, “The Budget 2024–25 not only exemplifies Bharat's newfound sense of purpose, hope and optimism under the PM Modi Ji -led NDA government but also fortifies them. Harnessing the power of Bharat's youth, Nari Shakti and farmers, the budget fuels the nation's pace on the path of emerging as a developed nation by ushering in a new era of employment and opportunities."

Budget Speech 2024 LIVE: Maninder Singh Nayyar, CEO and Founder, CEF Group, said, “Today's announcements by the Finance Minister mark a significant step forward for India's agricultural sector. The comprehensive review of the agricultural research setup, aimed at increasing productivity and developing climate-resilient varieties, is a crucial initiative.”

Budget Speech 2024 LIVE: Su Piow Ko, CEO of AET Displays, said, “The Union Budget 2024-25 provides significant support to the manufacturing sector, particularly through its focus on MSME clusters. The introduction of easy financing and credit guarantee schemes, along with the facilitation of collateral-free term loans for the purchase of machinery and equipment, will greatly enhance the manufacturers and suppliers network.”

Here are the goods that became cheaper:

Cancer medicines as customs duties on three cancer medicines have been exempted

Basic customs duty (BCD) on mobile phones, PCBAs and mobile chargers reduced to 15%

Customs duty on gold and silver reduced to 6% and on platinum to 6.5%

BCD on fish feed and shrimp reduced to 5%

Customs duties exempted on 25 critical minerals