Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented his third and full time second Union Budget. With a demand of supporting “Make in India” campaign and small and medium businesses, he announced a slew of schemes and tax exemptions. The Union budget has focused on farmers, rural infrastructure, agriculture, start-ups and entrepreneurship development.

Anyhow the industry is not at all happy with this budget as some of the long-pending demands of the MSMEs such as increase in excise duty exemption limit and higher depreciation benefits for CNC machines have not been addressed.

Industry demanded that excise duty exemption limit should be from Rs. 1.5 crore to Rs. 5 crore as the excise duty exemption limit was earmarked 10 years ago. Since then, prices of raw materials have moved up.

Industry experts also said that increase in turnover limit in presumptive taxation scheme from Rs. 1 crore to Rs. 2 crore might not benefit the MSMEs much as the turnover is less than Rs.1 crore for most of the micro units.