Corporate sector reacts to Arun Jaitley's pro-poor Budget

Uttam Bose, Group CEO, CK Birla Hospitals: "CK Birla Hospitals is committed to provide the best  patient care  to all section of the society. The initiatives announced in the Union Budget 2018 to boost the healthcare sector is indeed a welcoming move and would help us to serve the patients for which we are committed. The government policies that are duly designed so as to provide facilities to economically weaker section of the society will address the pressing need of healthcare for all."

Siddharth Chaturvedi, Director, AISECT: "The budget 2018-19 is a pro-Bharat budget, if we can call it that, which has a lot to offer to the population living in rural areas and individuals and enterprises working in the Agricultural space."

MS Sreedhar, MD and CEO, Royal Sundaram General Insurance Company Limited: “The Union budget has set a positive tone overall and affirms the government’s continued commitment to push reforms and investments.   The government seeks to bring greater focus on the rural and agricultural segments through positive initiatives and has proposed some far reaching reforms with a view to boost economic growth."

Chanda Kochhar, MD and CEO, ICICI Bank: “The Union Budget 2018-19 has done a commendable job in holistically addressing the various priorities of the Indian economy. It has addressed social sector priorities and charted out a clear plan to boost infrastructure, while maintaining fiscal discipline."

"The wide ranging measures announced for various segments of the rural economy will boost income levels and create gainful & sustainable employment. This in turn will help to increase consumption levels in the economy."

"The far reaching National Health Protection Scheme, which will be the largest of its kind in the world, along with measures taken to enhance education, skilling and research & development are indeed welcome steps," she added.

Kochhar added in saying, "The Government has also maintained its focus on creating infrastructure with an aim to catapult India onto a higher and sustainable growth path. The allocations for roads and railways are at all-time highs, which will have a positive impact on related sectors as well."

Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, OYO: "This year's Union Budget stood for entrepreneurship, employment and quality of life. The announcements made today will benefit MSMEs, including small hotels. At OYO, we have a network of over 3500 exclusively controlled hotels in the MSME sector and we believe that the budget presented today will facilitate the growth of our partners."

"The Mudra Loan allocation of INR 3 lakh crore will help in enabling SMEs to generate more jobs while creating thousands of new entrepreneurs too. One major change which we were expecting was GST being levied on the actual price rather than the declared tariff for hotel accommodation. We'll continue to engage with the government to make this happen which will leave no room for litigation and benefit the hospitality industry."

Bhavdeep Singh, CEO, Fortis Healthcare:  “We welcome the Hon’ble Finance Minister’s announcement today on two new healthcare programmes. Under the Flagship National Healthcare Protection Scheme, 10 crore people will be covered, reaching almost 50 crore beneficiaries, through a coverage of up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year."

"This will be the world’s largest government-aided programme. It is also heartening to note that under the Ayushman Bharat Scheme, Rs 1200 crore has been set aside for the launch of health and wellness centres across the country and around 1.5 lakh centres will provide free essential drugs, diagnostic, maternal and child services."

Ashwin Damera, Executive Director, Emeritus Institute of Management: "The announcements in the Union Budget 2018 that technology will be the biggest driver in improving quality of education is a welcome one and, we believe, will provide an impetus to edtech players to partner the Government in its endeavor. The allocation of Rs. 1 lakh crore towards revitalization and upgradation of education sector, listing out all the new educational and training institutes that the government aims to introduce and the move to promote learning-based outcomes and research are steps in the right direction to advance the quality of education, and thereby the quality of the manpower."

Shanti Ekambaram, President of Consumer Banking, Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd: "The Finance Minister focused the FY18/19 budget on spends in Agriculture, rural upliftment, the poor, health, education, Infrastructure and Digital India."

"The fiscal deficit projected, thus, saw a marginal slippage to 3.3% in FY19, with the current year’s deficit estimated at 3.5%. Given the criticality of areas that spends have been allocated to, the money would be well spent and good for India and the Indian economy in the long run."

Sameer Sah, Associate Partner, Khaitan & Co:  “Increase in tax allowances for health insurance will increase the opportunity on healthcare services delivery. This is an indirect fillip for not only insurance service providers but also healthcare services providers” 

“The FM highlighted the availability of low cost medicines and the like. The glorifying tenor should lead to a reasonable presumption that there will be further action on the price control front going forward”

“The National Health Protection Scheme will be an interesting initiative – private players, if allowed to participate in the scheme, will have an additional opportunity to service more patients” Sah added.

Rita Singh, CMD, Mesco Steel (MISL): " We welcome the Union Budget 2018-19 which gives special impetus to the infrastructure sector. With increased spending in infrastructure at Rs 5.97 Lakh crores, the sector is being pegged as a key growth driver.Various initiatives to encourage domestic manufacturing will boost overall investment in infrastructure and in turn drive demand for domestic steel."

Krish Iyer, President & CEO Walmart India: "I must compliment Prime Minister Modi and Finance Minister Jaitley for  intense focus on fiscal prudence in this budget. There is a huge focus in this ‘New Bharat’ Budget on inclusive growth and farm sector and despite that fiscal deficit targets have not been compromised."

"Another pathbreaking focus in this budget is on Healthcare with the announcement of a Flagship National Health Protection Scheme, providing annual health insurance cover of ₹5 lakh per family supporting more than 10 crore vulnerable families."