Union Budget 2020: A revival step for sustainable growth

With the finance minister’s union budget speech that introduces various development opportunities in the industrial sector, leaders collaborative appreciate the government’s focus on expanding the cold storage facilities, further leveraging the agriculture businesses.

Government’s announcement to support the development of other inland waterways (apart from National Waterway), is a positive step. Further, plans to corporatise at least one of the 12 Major ports and subsequently list it on the exchanges is a positive step towards government disinvestment in the ports sector. However, as seen in previous years, the budget allocation to Sagarmala projects is lower than the cost of planned initiatives. The revised estimates for Sagarmala in 2019-20 were low to 44 percent of the `317 crore budget estimate for asset creation. The budget allocation for 2020-21 has accordingly been reduced to `297 crores. Overall, the impact of the budget is neutral on the sector.
K. Ravichandran,
Senior Vice President and Group Head, Corporate Ratings, ICRA Ltd.

The ‘Big Infrastructure Push’ in the union budget 2020 is a big step towards boosting the economy and the sector. Government announced a huge spend over `102 trillion ($1.44 trillion) on roads, ports, airports, irrigation and other infrastructure over the next five years. This is definitely a demand revival step and will create an environment for sustainable growth in the sector. This budget is a big growth driver and proposes to step up the MEP industry sectors in the country. I am definitely positive that this budget is going to work for the MEP sector.
Prakasan TP, COO,
Sterling and Wilson,MEP Business

We welcome this year’s budget which sharply focuses on issues that propels the growth of aspiration India. Addressing the challenges of severe water stress in the nation as one of its top most agenda, this budget gets to the bottom of things by proposing comprehensive measures for 100 water-stressed area. I think that this will act as a catalyst to sustainable irrigation solutions across the country. We are greatly excited to see the budget allocation for ‘Jal Jeevan Mission’.
Ranganath N. K,Area Managing Director,INDO Region, Grundfos

The budget restores our confidence for agriculture and allied industries to increase their contribution to GDP in coming days. With the expansion of NABARD refinance scheme, there definitely is a greater scope to address the industry’s challenges at a grass-root level. The ability of states to fuel infrastructure support in tandem with the push for increased cold chain infrastructure for agriculture, horticulture, dairy and fisheries will be the key to tackling the food loss in our country.
Ravichandran Purushothaman, President,Danfoss India

We welcome the budget presented by our Finance Minister with an aim to position India on a much needed growth trajectory. We are pleased to see government’s increased efforts to eradicate hardships faced by Indian farmers. The proposed 16-point action plan for agriculture and farmers’ welfare coupled with the strategy to double farmers income by 2022 will aid the overall sector to a great extent. The importance given to sustainable cropping patterns coupled with technology will act as a catalyst to boost the Agritech sector. The augmented focus on Agri-warehousing along with the funds allocated for setting up warehouses at taluk levels will not only facilitate the farmers in smoothening of their operations and finances.
Amith Agarwal,Founder and CEO, Agri Bazaar