Industry leaders have welcomed the Union Budget 2018-19, saying it addressed key aspects of the economy such as agriculture distress, rural infrastructure, science, technology, healthcare and impetus to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.

Chairman and Managing Director of Biocon Limited Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said “the wide ranging union budget covered some of the main points that the economy has been suffering from”.

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“Agriculture stress, poor rural infrastructure and connectivity, absolutely pathetic health care and educational ecosystem in the country, science and research. All these have been covered in the budget,” she said.

The co-founder of Infosys Limited, Kris Gopalakrishnan opined that the budget gives highest level focus on health, education, agriculture, which was a welcome move.

Ratnesh Jha, Managing Director, Cambridge University Press (South Asia) termed the budget as balanced as far as education is concerned. “While on the one hand the government has rightly focused on improving educational infrastructure in the country, there is also a clear intent to strengthen capacity building through improvement in teacher training. The decision to treat education holistically without any segmentation is a welcome move and will lend greater synergy in planning and execution of important schemes and programmes,” he said.

Manish Nuwal, Managing Director and CEO, Solar Industries India Ltd, said: “Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s move to set up 2 defence production corridors is the right step to boost the `Make in India’ initiative aimed at self-sufficiency in ammunition procurement. It also compliments initiatives taken in the past to nurture domestic defence production capability that will make India self-reliant in meeting our defence needs.”

Vinay Sethi, Head-Market Development, Tax & Accounting, Thomson Reuters (South Asia), said  being the last full fledged Budget by the current Government before the next General Elections, Union Budget 2018 did not deliver big bang reforms that many were anticipating. “The government, however, did roll out some promising programmes which will support long term welfare and development. One of the key highlights of this budget is the launch of the flagship National Health Protection Scheme to cover 10 crore poor and vulnerable families and provide them up to INR 5 lakh per family per year in secondary and tertiary care institutions.”

Khushru Jijina, Managing Director, Piramal Finance & Piramal Housing Finance, termed the Union Budget as pragmatic. “The Government’s endeavor to provide housing to every poor citizen by 2020 through the establishment of a dedicated affordable housing fund in the national housing bank, along with priority sector status being granted, is a commendable one. The government assuming ownership of NHB from RBI is also positive as it would translate into the focus of NHB shifting from regulation to development,” he said.

Ashok Shah of  Khaitan & Co. said budget philosophy appears to be driven by elections 2019. Aiming to have India which is clean, connected, illuminated, healthy and educated.

Alice G Vaidyan, CMD, General Insurance Corporation of India (Reinsurance), said, “The Finance Minister has done a fine work of balancing fiscal deficit, with growth priorities and has given a positive thrust to all important segments of the economy.”

(With inputs from agencies)