Budget Reaction - Pro-Poor, Pro-Growth, Pro-Middle class, but not Pro-Women?

Dr. Saundarya Rajesh, Founder - President, AVTAR Career Creators and FLEXI Careers India

In one of his first tweets post Budget, the PM said: "FM @arunjaitley must be congratulated for this pro-poor, pro-growth, pro-middle class, pro-youth & paradigm shifting Budget".

But might I add? And NOTexactly a pro-women budget. One half of the sky completely ignored at first look. In fact, the word 'Women' in the Finance Minister's speech appeared just twice.

Honestly, I expected more from Shri. Narendra Modi. After winning with such a whopping mandate, I thought his budget would give more cause for cheer to small entrepreneurs like me. And I am not even beginning to rant about special concessions for women-led businesses.

Point - 1: Service Tax to be increased to 14% - one of the biggest impediments to cash flow for small businesses is the requirement of paying Service Tax in advance even before the payment is collected from the customer. Crippling as it is now, this will be further worsened by the additional 1.6%. If the same could have been differentially implemented on a slab rate, it could have encouraged small business owners. Not to mention women-owned or women-led businesses which suffer from the classic lack of independent funding. Or the fact that with all services becoming dearer (telecom for instance) the sheer cost of doing business goes up?

World-class IT Hubs to be created to increase employment and growth - yes, but how do we encourage one half of the population that can be employed there? Any special grants for infrastructure relating to women's careers? Nothing.

EPF to become optional - well, one manner in which savings is forced upon the low-to-mid SEC is via EPF. Why must it become optional? Could it be to increase spending by the younger generation of employees who have always traditionally disliked EPF? In the case of women, EPF is one of the key savings tools.

Corporate Tax to be decreased to 25% - yes, but how does this benefit many women led businesses which are non-corporate? Which still continue to be sole-proprietorship enterprises? No slack in tax for such individual owned/ women owned small businesses.

Rs. 1000 crore allotted to Nirbhaya Fund - Good news, definitely. Will wait to see how this translates into action

Absolutely nothing on skill-building or re-employment of women. Likewise, zero on infrastructure for increasing women's workforce participation. Our PM could have taken a leaf out of his friend, the Japanese Premier, Mr. Shinsho Abe's call to action for attracting mothers on career break to the workforce by providing flexibility. How is this done? The flexibility is encouraged by having organizations claim a tax rebate on employing women who return to the workforce. And with millions of returning mothers in India, this has the potential of adding an approximate increase of Rs. 15,000 crores to the economy. And fuel the aspirations of educated, ambitious women who have not obtained the enabling ecosystem that they deserve. Hope the dreams of one half of India's talent pool will translate into reality soon.

Source : Equity Bulls

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