With the Union Budget just hours away, expections are high, and speculations rife and what to expect on February 1.
This will be the last full-fledged budget to be presented by the Narendra Modi-led government, and the first one post the roll out of the GST.
With the Union Budget just hours away, expections are high, and speculations rife and what to expect on February 1.
Healthcare
The Budget is also likely to increase the allocation for addressing the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension etc. and to increase the outlay for providing free drugs, diagnostics and emergency services across all public hospitals, in line with NHP 2017.
E-Commerce
The Indian e-commerce sector are hopeful of a reduction in corporate tax to provide them a much-needed impetus and tax relief.
Additionally, a section of the industry is also looking forward to greater capital inflow for Digital India, which has significantly slowed down.
SME Sector
Anticipating changes CEO Power2SME, R. Narayan has said, "With approximately 51 million units, Indian MSME sector is gaining widespread momentum and attributing to more than one-third of the total GDP of the country. Our expectations from the Union Budget 2018 are further development of the MSME sector by introducing new mechanism to solve monetary grievances as the sector faces problems related to delayed payments and bounced cheques."
Digital Sector
The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) highlighted five key tax related challenges that the digital sector expects to be addressed in the Budget announcements.
Tech Sector
With investors expecting increased investment in key areas, such as e-commerce, healthcare, education, and agriculture; reduction in tax slabs, improvement of tech infrastructure, and data security remain the key concerns for the Information Technology (IT) sector.
(Inputs from agencies)