Budget 2014-2015: Investment, Manufacturing and Agriculture

Investment by Corporate

According to the latest data available, it is clear that the investment by corporate has been falling since long and this needs to be taken care of, as without and very low of investment by corporate, government would not be able to increase growth. So the government must ensure that there are some stimuli for the corporate to encourage them to reinvest their earnings back into the economy.

Manufacturing

Manufacturing sector in India has been lagging for many years and its contribution in total GDP has been falling. From the following graph it is clear that the manufacturing sector has been growing at a rate of around zero per cent for the past two years. The national aspiration is to increase the share of this sector in the GDP from the current 14 per cent to 25 per cent in the next ten years. For this, we need to seriously incentivise the formation of manufacturing enterprises mainly medium small and micro enterprises as these enterprises cannot do their best without government supports. If MSMEs are promoted properly, millions of jobs can be created for youth.

Agriculture

We have been witnessing very high food inflation for many years in economy and this is creating huge ruckus and it does not seem that this is going to over so easily and soon without well thought strategy execution. So for the government it becomes imperative to take right actions some short term and some medium to long term. Short term measures can include MSP restraint, sell-off of excess food stocks, reducing import duties etc. But in the medium to long term strategy, government must focus on increasing farm productivity and changing some of corps patterns in different parts of country. Apart from this government needs to put in place a well thought strategy and plan to boost the agro-processing industries. And this only cannot work for the farmers alone. There is need for a number of agricultural produces companies that promotes and sells farm produces across the country and these needs to promoted and encouraged by the states governments as well as central government. NABARD can be made nodal agency for the same. While establishing such companies government must take care of stiff taxation and lack of policy support. Also there is need to link agriculture research, university and farmers for better results. Water management and harvesting must be encouraged. Crop diversification, and "more crops per drop" should be the mantra.