NEW DELHI: Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the Union Budget for 2017-18 provides renewed impetus to the government’s Make in India initiative, manufacturing, and export infrastructure.
She said several measures have been announced in the Budget to provide impetus to commerce and industry. The key ones include a special scheme for creating employment in leather and footwear industries; profit-linked deduction exemption for three years out of seven years against three years out of five years at present.
Besides, for the purpose of carry-forward of losses for start-ups, the condition of continuous holding of 51 per cent of voting rights has been relaxed subject to the condition that the holding of the original promoter/promoters continues. Minimum alternate tax credit is allowed to be carried forward up to a period of 15 years instead of 10 years at present.
She said, “For creating an ecosystem to make India a global hub for electronics manufacturing, a provision of Rs 745 crore in 2017-18 in incentive schemes like M-SIPS and EDF. The incentives and allocation has been exponentially increased following the rise in investment proposals”.
According to her, infrastructure has been strengthened with a large budgetary allocation. She said measures for MSMEs would make them more competitive. The outlay for the Department of Commerce for 2017-18 has pegged at Rs 4,465.83 crore, down from Rs 4,562.74 crore in the revised estimate for the current fiscal.