Captains see nothing for TN - Budget 2013

With no special announcements for Tamil Nadu, corporates here reacted to Pranab’s budgetary announcements in a tame manner.

hough the finance minister preceded his tax announcements with Shakespeare’s words “I must be cruel only to be kind”, Chennai businessmen found little kindness in them.

“The budget had nothing specific for Tamil Nadu,” lamented Mr R. Dinesh, CII Tamil Nadu chairman. “Amendment to GST will have a direct impact on supply chain,” he lamented.

The state’s strong auto industry, which was hoping for some kind of sops to overcome its hard times, found little to rejoice.

Several auto majors in the city expressed shock over the move to hike excise duty on petrol and diesel cars with higher engine capacity.

The industry was just scrambling back to normalcy but the excise duty hike and enlarging service tax net will slow down growth again, said Mr R. Sethuraman, senior VP of Hyundai Motors India Ltd. “We have no choice but to pass on the increase in cost to customers directly as we cannot absorb any more losses,” he lamented while hinting at a price rise of Rs 6,000-Rs 72,000 for their range of cars.

“I wish there was real thrust to manufacturing sector,” said Mr Venu Srinivasan, CMD, TVS Motor Company Ltd. “Issues like land acquisition, labour laws, Factories Act and getting away from Permit Raj are key for growth,” he added.

The IT services industry that was looking forward to stability, consistency and simplicity in policymaking was served a mixed bag, opined R. Chandrasekaran, Group chief executive, Cognizant. Textile associations too felt that the budget package only addressed the handloom and powerloom sector and not the larger needs to the industry.

On the export front, FIEO president M. Rafeeque Ahmed expressed his disappointment over non-extension of interest subsidy for exports.