Vikas Bajaj, President, Association of Indian Forging Industry (AIFI)

The current budget is expected to be balanced for both consumers and manufacturers. The budget for this year should be outlined in “Recovery and Growth”. The government needs to invest more funds in major industries, including infrastructure, real estate, manufacturing, and tourism, so as to emerge from the pandemic and increase employment. There is a need to increase the existing incentives to increase exports. There is also a need to speed up the process of refunding the GST to provide the industry with liquidity. In addition, the highest tax rate under the GST legislation must also be minimised by up to 18% in order to boost demand. The industry is also awaiting some news on the scrappage policy.