Mr. Ravi Saund, Head Business Development, CHD Developers Ltd

Real estate sector plays a vital role in the Indian economy. It is time that it gets its due recognition and impetus. I am pretty optimistic and hope that the Union Budget 2011-2012 will bring in a fresh lease of life and reforms that will give the industry the much needed thrust. I believe the following modification will have a positive impact on the housing sector as whole.”

Creation of Real Estate Regulatory Authority and bring into force a Model Real Estate (Regulation of Development) Act.
Reducing timelines for government approvals.
Standard Operating Procedures for funding in Real Estate.
Simplification of taxation in the sector.

Pradeep Jain, Chairman, Parsvnath Developers Limited

Industry Status
Being the largest employment generator after agriculture in India, there is a definite case for recognizing the real estate sector as an industry. At a time when real estate sector is facing liquidity crunch, this move would make financing easy from the bank in this highly capital driven sector. Also opportunities for external borrowing would become easier for the sector.

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Ajay Parmar, Head - Institutional Research, Emkay Global Financial Services Ltd

Further stimulus rollback likely

Rollback of excise duty likely in select sectors

The pre-crisis excise duty at 14% was cut to 8% after the fiscal stimulus, and currently stand at 10%. With strong growth in sectors like small cars and low inflation in man-made fibers, the rate may be raised to 12%. In large cars and UV also the excise duty may be raised

Likely rollback of service tax and including more services

The service rates was spared in last budget and looking at the strong growth in services coupled with 16% GST rates in future, service tax may be increased to 12%. This would also not impact the inflation as much as the excise duty increase. There may be inclusion of more services under service tax

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Ajay S Mittal, Group Chairman & Managing Director, Arshiya International Ltd.

1. The government needs to encourage higher investment in the infrastructure sector. Industry still faces major bottlenecks in doing business, and this affects the economy's growth.
2. In the logistics sector, the railways need to look at reintroducing some schemes such as SFTO, AFTO, etc. that had failed earlier with necessary modifications to enable private sector participation. Focus should be on setting up high-speed dedicated freight corridors under a clear timetable - with private participation if needed. Private sector participation has helped in sectors such as telecom, aviation and ports - railways too can get a similar boost.
3. Land acquisition has become a very sensitive issue in the past couple of years. It is important that farmers/land-owners are treated fairly and the government can help by bringing reforms that ensure a fair price is paid and that displaced people also benefit from new projects by the way of jobs etc. This will also help bring down resistance to land acquisition.

Sanjay Daga, Vice President Operations, DesignTech Systems Pvt. Ltd

Incentives to be Provided to Specialized Mechanical, Manufacturing & Service CompaniesUndertaking R & D – R&D for Auto, aero and Mechanical industry is crucial and important. With thisyear budget we expect that government should include specific tax benefits for R&D service & solutionproviders. This will help Indian Mechanical Industries to invest more and leverage the benefits of newedge technologies like CAD/CAM/CAE &PLM solution to improve their bottom lines and providingmarket the high quality products.

Vikas Khanvelkar, Managing Director, DesignTech Systems Pvt. Ltd.

“We expect this year’s budget to support the current growth rate of 9 % for the next year also. At thesame time increasing inflation and input cost are reducing the operating margins and budget should aimat reducing this pressure on the companies. For the software industry the confusion of double taxation ofservice tax and VAT /CST is adding fuel to fire and creating uncertainty. Once for all the clarity on thistaxation issue should be brought and double taxation effect should be eliminated.”

Sanjay Jain - JT. MD - TT Limited

Textile Industry is struggling due to very high cotton prices and interest rates. We need immediate redressal of these issues from the govt in the budget by the following measures:
Interest rate subvention which was removed for most textile segments in 2010 budget should be restored immediately without any exceptions.
TUF which was suspended in May 2010 should be immediately restored and proper Funds should be allocated to meet the existing liability - Mills are getting funds with a 9 months delay and this is creating liquidity and interest burden.
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