New Delhi, Feb 1: Ashish Kumar Chauhan, MD and CEO at NSE, on Friday hailed the Union Budget for its focus on accelerating growth by providing a fillip to investment and increasing the spending power of the middle class by raising the income tax exemption limit.
Talking to IANS, Chauhan said, “The budget manages to deliver on consumption, investment and social welfare without compromising on fiscal prudence. The fiscal deficit for FY26 is budgeted at 4.4 per cent of the GDP, ensuring a downward trend in debt to GDP levels.”
Overall, the Budget places India in a strong position and shall play an important role towards achieving the objective of ‘Viksit Bharat’ by 2047, Chauhan said. He said Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman has struck a balance between fiscal deficit, tax relief for the middle class by raising their spending power and through enhanced provision for infrastructure expenditure that has been raised to Rs 11.2 lakh crore in FY26 as compared to Rs 10.2 lakh crore earlier.
“The FM’s balancing act will increase the country’s growth rate, raise income of companies and boost consumption due to more money in the people’s hands for spending,” he said. Infrastructure spend will benefit steel and cement companies, boost jobs in the construction sector and the resultant higher consumption will benefit companies making TV, fridge, automobile, toothpaste and soap that will bring cheer to the stock markets, he said, explaining the possible sectoral gains from the Budget announcements.
He said as the fine print of the Budget spreads fast the markets will also show their enthusiasm. The NSE CEO said the growth-supportive measures in the Budget were accompanied by continued support on social-welfare, with a slew of measures announced to provide quality education, affordable healthcare, employment skilling opportunities, and enhance women participation in the labour force.
“The new geopolitical situation emerging with America imposing import tariffs on Mexico, China and Canada is also likely to see India play a bigger role and I hope we will do better than the growth projections of 6.4-6.8 per cent for the next year,” he said.
The aim of becoming globally competitive is reflected in the consolidation and rationalisation of tariffs, he said, adding that Indian exports are likely to become more competitive.
Talking about Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling it GYAN Budget – focussed on Garib, Yuva, Annadata and Nari, Chauhan said this Budget, like the previous ones, is pro-growth and also pays attention to special interest groups, including MSMEs.
Highlighting that the Kisan credit card loan limit has been increased from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 5 lakh, he said this will also reduce their reliance on private lenders, offering them relief. –IANS