Mr. B G Jain – Chairman & MD, Nakoda Ltd.

For Polyester Filament Yarns segment, like everybody else, Nakoda too expects that this year’s budget will be conducive to maintain annual growth of more than 9% in the years to come.
So far as Polyester industry is concerned it is also growing at a CAGR of more than 10% for the past two decades. To a large extent, this growth is on account of shortage of cotton due to ever increasing demand of various fibres. Because of increase in Polyester Filament, there is an increase in per capita consumption of various textile products and other end-users like technical textiles. We feel that in order to sustain industrial growth in Polyester segment to the existing level of 10%, the duty on polyester products should be brought at par with cotton i.e. 4%. It may be mentioned that Excise Duty of Polyester Yarn was increased to 10% in the last budget. We expect that duty @ 4% would not only boost investment in polyester sector, but will also contain pressure on ever rising demand of cotton fibre.
For renewable energy, we apprehend that there is a proposal to discontinue tax holiday given to income from renewable energy u/s 80 IA of Income Tax. The Wind Power production is still not very viable for Independent Power Producers (IPPs). Withdrawal of any incentives would be counter productive to further investment in this sector. On the contrary there is need for providing more incentives to this industry.
It is also desirable that the manufacturers of Wind Turbines get exemption of Excise Duty on their raw-materials. Since Wind Turbines are exempted from Excise Duty, they do not get any MODVAT advantage. Abolishing of Excise Duty on their raw-materials would help in reduction of Wind Turbine prices which will eventually make Wind Power Projects more viable.