The business of a good budget is to be business-like. Often we mistake business-like to be blatantly pro-business. This budget manages to be business-like without giving away too much to business interests. Importantly, it keep social spends up while making changes that simplify laws affecting business. Taxation is an area of vexation for both business and government. Both can never be happy with a decision. The changes to tax laws seem set to manage the impossible. The budget’s business-like approach is best highlighted by the emphasis on how subsidies reach the beneficiary fully, how the financial system becomes completely inclusive, how systemic leaks will be decisively plugged and how we change the way government reaches out to citizens. Schemes target newer demographic groups in better ways like the Mudhra bank. Innovation becomes an instrument of broad based social change and growth at the hands of this government. That is a compelling story to bet upon. Business will certainly benefit from the newer ways in which it can mobilize capital, seek technology, foster entrepreneurship and create a new India. India is the hottest investment destination. It will remain so for years to come.
Short term focus often mutes one’s long term vision while investing.