Tabled For Long-Term Growth

THE UNION BUDGET 2022-23 SURPRISED A SECTION WITH ITS FOCUS ON LONG-TERM GROWTH. ASHISH BHATIA LOOKS AT THE ALLOCATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE COMMERCIAL VEHICLES SEGMENT.

- ASHISH BHATIA

It’s not easy to please all! Who better than Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman to vouch for it as she knows what it feels like to walk on thin ice. Not an exclusive sense of dichotomy, it’s been the case with any Finance Minister tasked with appeasing all sections of society, in one go, on budget day. In her fourth budget, the FM, despite year-long allocations and interventions was duty bound to present the balance sheet ‘As-Is’ and make provisions for fresh allocations from the Centre as expected by the stakeholders of the commercial vehicles industry from the annual spectacle. Especially, since the economic recovery was marred the third time around by the Omicron mutation of the Covid-19. In the third consecutive year of the pandemic, she was expected to dole out allocations akin to a booster jab for instant growth. And so, she was expected to announce a majority of measures for the near to mid-term. Instead, the FM in a unanimous word on the street, surprised a large section, with a long-term focused budget, tabled and deemed apt for sustainable growth. “Brevity has always been a virtue,” tweeted Anand Mahindra on the shortest budget speech by the sitting FM to sum up the overall business sentiment as she concluded.