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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday unveiled a Rs 39.45 lakh crore Budget with a view to fire up the key engines of the economy to sustain a world-beating recovery from the pandemic.
This was Sitharaman's fourth Budget.
While the taxpayers were left in the lurch, once again, was she able to cheer Corporate India?
Read on to find out:
Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran:
“The budget is consistent with our Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of making India Atmanirbhar - a digital superpower, a sustainability leader and a healthy nation."
Vedanta Group CEO Sunil Duggal:
"...Growth-oriented and pro-development budget with sizeable capital investment for sustained and speedy economic revival."
ITC chairman Sanjiv Puri:
"I congratulate the Finance Minister for once again presenting a visionary, futuristic and growth oriented Budget, which is aligned to the prime minister's vision of building a competitive and resilient India."
Tech Mahindra MD & CEO C P Gurnani:
“The Budget truly echoes India's vision towards inclusive development and building a truly 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' by providing a blueprint for the economy over 'Amrit Kal' from India at 75 to India at 100."
Dabur India CEO Mohit Malhotra:
"Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Union Budget 2022-23 may not have met the general expectations of being a short-term consumption booster, but it surely has all the right ingredients for becoming an impactful long-term growth-oriented move."
Torrent Group chairman Samir Mehta:
"This year's union budget has considerable focus on overall infrastructure development across the country which underscores the growth opportunity for Power sector."
Snapdeal co-founder & CEO Kunal Bahl:
"We welcome the government's emphasis on creating new digital touchpoints to empower multiple aspects of our society and supercharge the startup ecosystem."
Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy:
“... Inclusive and growth-oriented balanced budget with a clear focus on strengthening physical and digital infrastructure, boosting the 'Make in India' start-up ecosystem and providing a strong digital push."
Panasonic India CEO Manish Sharma:
“It underscores the Govt commitment towards Digital India and investment in Public Private Partnership through game changing initiatives like Gati Shakti programme, investment in the sunrise sectors and MSMEs, introducing policies for clean energy, among others."
Martin Schwenk, MD & CEO, Mercedes-Benz India:
"This Budget is overall growth oriented with a clear focus on digitization, electrification, infrastructure development and ease of doing business; aiming to propel a long-term growth of the Indian economy."
Prashant Ruia, director, Essar Capital:
"A blueprint budget with a nice touch of green! A bold one with a massive hike in public investment will be the booster dose to restart corporate investments."
Harsh Jain, CEO and Co-Founder, Dream11 and Dream Sports: "We welcome the budget's focus on promoting start-ups and giving impetus to the Digital Economy."
Neeraj Akhoury, CEO & MD Ambuja Cements: “The Union Budget 2022 gives a major boost to the infrastructure sector that will help the economy to recover, and grow, at pace."
Sunil Mathur, MD and CEO, Siemens Limited:
"We welcome the growth-oriented budget with a focus on the four pillars – productivity, climate action, financing investments, and PM Gati Shakti plan."
Reliance General Insurance CEO Rakesh Jain:
"The Budget for the year 2022-23 has laid clear emphasis on the capital outlay, with the capital expenditure proposed to be enhanced to Rs.7.5 lakh crore at 2.9 pc of the GDP; over 35% increase than the last year."
Venkatraman Narayanan, MD & CFO, Happiest Minds:
Continued focus to further improve the ease of doing business, consistency and stability in tax rates, rebates, push to further digitise the economy etc will support software sector which will go a long way for the IT industry to become a $350 billion economy over the next five years.
Dheeraj Hinduja, executive chairman, Ashok Leyland Limited:
"The finance minister has presented a growth-oriented and pro-development Budget for 2022-23 by focusing on sustainable planning & development, energy transition for a cleaner tomorrow and inclusive growth through a tech-enabled economy."
Kamal Bali, president and MD, Volvo Group, India:
"A progressive, thoughtful, imaginative, and growth-oriented budget that touches all socio-economic segments, while embracing technology & modern tools of governance.
"Focus on logistics will help solve supply-side challenges and curb structural inflationary challenges.
"Public transport, urban infrastructure push, and inter-operable battery swapping policy are big positives.
"Extension of ECLGS credit guarantee to MSME and hospitality sectors is a welcome step."
Baba N. Kalyani, CMD Bharat Forge Ltd:
"The proposed new legislation for SEZs with states as partners coupled with heightened emphasis on the seven engines under PM Gati Shakti initiative should pave way for a New India."
Anil G Verma, executive director and president, Godrej & Boyce:
"The Budget for FY 2023 holds a lot of promise for the economy. The initiative of spurring investments from the private sector by taking the lead through government investments of Rs. 7.5 lakh crore is laudable.
"Support for domestic manufacture of capital equipment by doing away with duty exemptions is also a welcome step.
"Reforms in customs administration will no doubt support both the SEZs as well as other manufacturers in the domestic tariff area.
Aakash Minda, executive director, Minda Corporation Limited:
"Dubbed the 'booster dose budget' in some quarters, some of the measures unveiled today, like Capex spent of around 7.5 lakh crore, PM Gati Sakti projects and focus on making India more Atmanirbhar will certainly offer a shot in the arm for the manufacturing industry."
Nagesh Basavanhalli, Group CEO & MD, Greaves Cotton Limited:
"The Union Budget 2022 has some important announcements to accelerate economic growth by focusing on four core pillars of productivity, climate action, financing investment and PM Gati Shakti Programme which will help strengthen our infrastructure and MSME sector."
Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO, TCS:
"The Budget has magnified the digital India vision and importance of technology in all key areas such as infrastructure, inclusive development, sustainability, sunrise industries, and skilling.
"The Budget also provides many opportunities for growth of the technology industry by bringing in world-class solutions and best practices for the Railways, healthcare system, education, financial services, and regulatory bodies to accelerate the overall growth.
"The move to introduce E-passport will further streamline the overall citizen experience, enhance security, and facilitate smoother international travel.
"The plan to allow the RBI to introduce a digital rupee is an extremely futuristic decision as it creates an opportunity for the nation to leapfrog into the digital currency world.
Unsoo Kim, MD, Hyundai Motors India:
"The vision for clean mobility creating electric vehicle ecosystem is a positive indicator for the auto industry and for its large supply chain.
"The forward-looking budget will lay modular economic structure for every section of business and society."
Baba Kalyani, CMD, Bharat Forge:
"The commitment to promote self-reliance and indigenisation by leveraging domestic industry is once again reinforced with the 68 per cent enhanced domestic allocation for defence capital procurement.
"Earmarking 25 per cent of defence R&D budget for industry, startups and the academia is a forward looking step as it will pave way for investments in frontier technologies and capability development."
Sanjiv Chadha, managing director and CEO, Bank of Baroda:
"Though the budget has kept fiscal prudence in mind, with fiscal deficit being reined in at 6.4 per cent, it will still mean higher borrowing and the resultant jump in interest rates both for bank borrowers as well as the for government."
Vijay Shekhar Sharma, chairman, Paytm:
"The budget has made way for digital rupee -- a monumental step in driving the next phase of digitisation of financial services and payments, bringing in more efficiency of transactions in its wake."
Tulsi Tanti, founder-chairman, Suzlon Group:
"The budget will go a long way in stimulating the economy as the government is fully focused on growth in challenging times.
"The budget is a landmark when it comes to prioritizing renewable energy.
Pawan Munjal, Chairman and CEO, Hero Motocorp:
"Overall the budget is well balanced and conscious of the needs of all segments of the economy, while staying true to the long-term goal of nation building on one hand and on the other serves as the launch-pad to share the blueprint for our economic trajectory over the next 25 years."
Amit Chadha, CEO & MD, L&T Technology Services:
"The many steps announced in the budget will shape the country's journey ahead as digital engineering is the future... Budget precisely offers the fundamental impetus to leverage digital technologies to further the nation's growth and march ahead.
Prashant Kumar, MD & CEO, Yes Bank:
"Against the backdrop of the pandemic, the budget sets a base for a sustainable long-term growth.
"Increased capex is expected to further reinvigorate the economy and crowd-in private investment as the budget dovetails well with the earlier announced national infrastructure pipeline.
"Overall, the government seems conscious of triggering positive growth impulse and the budget strikes the right chords in terms of reviving consumption and boosting investments."
Satyakam Arya, MD & CEO, Daimler India Commercial Vehicles:
"Fundamentally, the budget focuses on supporting growth as the books go slow on fiscal consolidation thus providing headroom for more spending to support the growth momentum on sustainable basis."
Samir Mehta, chairman, Torrent Group:
"The budget focus on energy transition and climate action is commendable and reinforces strong commitment towards sustainable development.
"Measures proposed by the finance minister in the union budget such as the PLI scheme for manufacturing high efficiency solar modules are also encouraging."
Motilal Oswal, MD & CEO, Motilal Oswal Financial Services:
"Any sudden and sharp fiscal consolidation steps could have throttled the nascent and uneven recovery of the economy and keeping deficit at 6.9 per cent has alleviated that pain."
Punit Goenka, MD, Zee Entertainment Enterprises:
"With the holistic focus on a broad-based economic recovery, in the Budget is a big positive for India Inc.
"The steps announced to build domestic capacities in animation, visual-effects, gaming and comics segments will certainly help enhance capabilities, enabling us to compete more effectively at a global stage."
Gautam Hari Singhania, CMD, Raymond:
"The Budget underlines continuity of supply-side reforms including deregulation, simplification of processes, and production-linked incentives among other aspects, leading to overall improved ease of doing business."