“I would like to highlight two or three issues concerning the industry. Our biggest concern for the country has to be that we have to create enough jobs for the 50 million or so young men and women who’ll come out of our education system. The key thing has to be creation of employment. When it comes to creation of employment, there is a key issue of manufacturing competitiveness. If manufacturing isn’t competitive, you can’t create jobs. And to create more jobs, one has to export significantly more than what we’re doing today. Therefore, we have to keep this in mind when ever we talk about the budget and growth.

I think the second-level manufacturing reforms that we would have liked to see haven’t been taken care of. Really, the manufacturing reforms aren’t clear. I wish that there was a real thrust for the manufacturing segment, in terms of land acquisition, addressing the various gamuts of labour laws, factories acts towards ease of running a factory. From that point of view, I would say that we wish there had been a greater push in that direction.

Clearly on the auto industry, the growth of expensive diesel cars and SUVs has been addressed without saying so, by increasing the excise duties on high-end vehicles to 27%. The 22-24% isn’t a big deal. He’s certainly gone a little further ahead in terms of high-end cars. I still do believe that the fuel subsidies issues and fuel pricing mechanism issues haven’t been addressed properly. Overall, it’s a very pragmatic and realistic budget. The tenor of the finance minister’s speech was very positive.”