Industry reaction on post Union Budget 2013-14 from Mr. Omkar P. Herlekar, Whole-Time Director, OSCL Moneycontrol (28/02/ 2013)
Mumbai : Populism is fast becoming the ‘new vocab’ of the political community. It perceivably manifested from the Union Budget 2013-14 presented today by Union Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram in the parliament.
The Union Budget 2013-14 seemed more like election-nomics and less of economics. As one of the dominant players in the speciality chemicals sector in India (Omkar Speciality Chemicals Limited), and from what we comprehend from the Union Budget 2013-14, I feel that it was more of a ‘now-you-see; now-you-hope’ fiscal statement as it virtually failed to offer any fillip to the speciality chemicals sector.
Going by the so-called fiscal-acrobats, the speciality chemicals sector is visibly left to figure out the exact starting line from where they want to propel. The Union Budget 2013-14 essentially failed to provide any elbow-room to the speciality chemicals sector.
As the adage goes—“the devil is in the details”. The Union Budget 2013-14 was sort of a fiscal window-dressing for the incumbent government. Taking a sneak peak into the budget clutter, I feel that it does not trigger any positive corollaries for the speciality chemicals industry as the Union Budget 2013-14 has with great finesses dodged the core issues faced by our industry, which was expecting specific fiscal prudence.
I am happy that the only proactive fiscal step towards the sector, as a small token to the SMEs and Midcap companies like OSCL was that the Union Budget 2013-14 announced a petite entitlement of investment allowance of 15 per cent on companies investing Rs 100 crore or more in plant and machinery between April 1, 2013 and March 31, 2015, in addition to the current rates of depreciation.
It will indeed have spill-over benefits to small entities like us as we have earmarked a Capex of Rs 100 crore spread across next two years (2013-14, 2014-15) towards capacity expansion and infrastructure. Besides this, I see no prudent fiscal measures earmarked in the Union Budget 2013-14. Overall, it was a symbolic pre-election Budget for the entire speciality chemicals sector.