The COVID 19 pandemic threw many unprecedented challenges before the world and crippled the world’s economy to a great extent. With the consecutive variants posing uncertainty and further leaving the business fraternity in distress it has been a great challenge for the national government to streamline the economic wellbeing of the nation. It is amid this challenging backdrop that India’s Finance Minister tabled the Union Budget for the year 2022 -23 on February 1, 2022. World Trade Center Bhubaneswar in association with Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar organized Budget Conclave ’22 on a virtual platform. The session intended to analyze the nuances of Budget 2022 and its implications by the industry stalwarts and experts. The speakers highlighted both positive as well as the critical aspects of the budget and provided for a hopeful vision in the times ahead.

Prof. (Dr.) S.N. Misra (IES, Retd.) analyzed the budget from the social sector point of view. He gave a detailed presentation on the significant allocation of CAPEX, digitization, fiscal consolidation and SME. He mentioned about the significant increase in the capital expenditure which makes the Budget 2022 stand out and how the whole direction of the budget is fueled by borrowing and is not tax-propelled. Further, he explained about some of the important parameters such as the macro-economic indicators, Global Macro-economic Trends, digital assets, allocation priority, social sector investment, Zero Hunger Goal, educational expenditure, constitutional mandate, various hits & misses and why the tax collection is relatively low.

Mr. Rajen Padhi, Commercial Director, B-One Business House Pvt Ltd & Honorary Convener, WTC International Trade and Export Promotion Think Tank presented a critical view of the budget. In his address deliberated on Green Energy and how the dependency on Bio-fuels is reducing which has a major impact on the GDP. He shared his views on various industrial sectors such as the agricultural sector and how it withstood the disruption during the pandemic and the immense growth of healthcare sector. He also highlighted how the purchasing power has drastically declined and emphasized on the need for revision in the tax slabs. In addition to that, he also shared his views on how the MSME Sector is affected by the budget where 93% of the micro industries are languishing post pandemic.

Mr. Sashi Sekhar Mohanty, CEO & Managing Director, Essar Minmet Limited gave an insight about the industry and business perspective of the budget and how it’s neither beneficial nor detrimental for the sector. He spoke about confidence generation throughout sectors, infrastructural constraints, arbitration centers, bottlenecks for the industries and climate change responsibility. He lauded the efforts by which the rupee is gaining stability. He emphasized on sustainability and how the industry needs to revamp in order to cope up with the challenges in the sector. He also spoke about the significance of digitalization and the measures undertaken by the government in order to work progressively towards putting across technology-enabled development as it has been a big factor for the industrial growth.

CA A.K. Sabat, Partner, AK Sabat & Co. made enthralling observations on the implications of budget on taxes, the effect on the middle-class population of the nation and the impact of Covid-19 on mental health. He further added on how the government has been unable to uplift the middle-class who bear the brunt of the inflation majorly. He put forth his views on various ways in which the public lose the deductions in their taxes while choosing the alternative tax schemes. He further advised to read and remain updated about various laws with respect to finance and taxation.

The session was followed by a highly interactive Q&A Session where the speakers responded cognizantly to the queries by the attendees.

Earlier in the session, Ms. Nimeshika Natarajan, Assistant Director, World Trade Center Bhubaneswar welcomed all the esteemed speakers and invited them to share their views on the interpretation of the Finance bill.

Prof. Subhakant Padhi, Faculty, Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar moderated the session and proposed the vote of thanks.