Capital Club and inFINeeti organised a session called Budget Plus on 14

July 2014 at the IIFT Kolkata campus where Industry experts and
academicians shared their view on the Union Budget 2014.
The Esteemed panel consisted of Mr.Pankaj Agarwal and Mr.Akash
Manchanda from EY who undertook the discussion on taxes. Dr.Saikat
Sinha Roy, a reputed professor of economics at the Jadavpur UniversityCalcutta was one of the speakers. Dr.Ranajoy Bhattacharyya, a highly
accomplished Professor of Economics, IIFT was also one of the member of
the panel.
The discussion was started by Mr. Saikat Sinha. He applauded the budget
presented by the government and said that it will help in restoring
Investors confidence. He said that with the improving fiscal deficit, the
inflation in the country would also soften. Mr. Sinha stressed on the need
of reforms in the sectors like Banking, Insurance and Real Estate. He
focussed on starting the infrastructure reforms and increasing the PublicPrivate Partnership in various projects to boost investments.
Rural sector was also one of the main talking point of Mr. Saikats speech.
He talked about undertaking the electrification process in the villages. He
talked about improving the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act (MNREGA) wherein the manpower would be used to build
some tangible assets that can come as an aid for the village.
The next discussion was started by Mr. Akash Manchanda. He shared his
insight on the Direct Taxes propositions in the budget. He said that he was
glad that the government decided not to use retrospective taxation in
future. It is a blot on the countrys legal environment and is seen as a
deterrence to investments. He also told that the government is currently
studying the DTC proposal and after review DTC would be implemented in
the country in about one or two years time.
Mr. Pankaj Agrawal then started his session on Indirect tax. He said that to
kick-start the manufacturing sector, government has announced several
measures like reduction in the basic customs duty on various products. To
provide a fillip to the Capital goods, consumer durables and automobile
sector, excise duty concessions were extended upto 31 December 2014.
He told that Service Tax has been growing at a swift pace. Earlier their
used to be positive list. Now there is only a negative lists that enlists items
on which service tax is not to be imposed.
Next it was the turn of Dr.Ranajoy Bhattacharyya to opine about the
budget. He started his speech by saying that he was disappointed by the
budget. He said that with the full majority at disposal, the government
should have used the opportunity to undertake some drastic decisions. He

said that it is wrong for the government to increase the rail fare just
before the railway budget and doubted the governments intensions.
In the end, before wrapping up the programme, mementos were
distributed to the speakers for sharing their knowledge with the students.
A highly successful Budget 3.0 programme at IIFT Kolkata reached its end.