Chennai, March 1:: The leather industry has expressed disappointment over the Union budget for not providing important fiscal measures to the industry.
Rafeeque Ahmed, Chairman, Council for Leather Exports in a statement said the leather industry was hoping for major budgetary relief in the form of CVD exemption on machinery and equipments, lowering of duty on spare parts of machinery and central excise exemption on footwear components.
The industry's request to exempt services received from abroad and exempting all leather processes from the purview of service tax was also not considered, he said.
R Seshasayee, MD, Ashok Leyland Ltd, in a statement called the budget a ‘responsible’ one . "An appreciable feature of the budget is the new emphasis on private-public partnership as an effective tool for bridging the viability gap in investment intensive and broad based programmes," he said.
He also said by introducing no new taxes, the Finance Minister, has signalled a stable tax regime on moderate tax rates, widening of the tax base and better compliance.
Ashok Taneja, President, Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India, while welcoming the Finance Minister's thrust to the automotive industry, said he could have waited for a couple of years more to reduce the peak rates of duty from 15 per cent to 12.50 per cent.
"With this reduction in the customs duty on components, many key component systems attract much lower duty in India as compared to ASEAN countries like Thailand", he said in a statement.
O P Garg, President, Federation of Indian Export Organisations, in a statement, said that not much incentives have been provided in the budget for inviting investments in infrastructure which holds the key to exports in the near future.
He further said the increase in service tax from 10 per cent to 12 per cent will further erode the competitiveness of exports as large number of exporters were either not covered under Cenvat or were having excessive Cenvat credit which would increase further.
Gopal Srinivasan, director, TVS-Electronics in a release said "by levying an excise duty of 12 per cent on PCS and 16 per cent on set top boxes, the two key drivers for growth of ICT industry, the government has shown high understanding and commitment to grow local manufacturing".
