1 फरवरी को पेश होने वाले बजट 2025(Budget 2025) से देश के हर नागरिक को उम्मीद हैं। Startups को भी इस बजट से कई खास एक्सपेक्टेशन हैं। एग्रीकल्चर इन्फ्रास्ट्रक्चर को मजबूत करने के लिए सरकार को फिजिकल और डिजिटल इंफ्रा दोनों पर ही फोकस करना होगा ताकि किसानों को ज्यादा से ज्यादा फायदे मिलें। गुडरिटर्न्स की बजट स्पेशल सीरीज FUTURE FOCUS: BUDGET 2025 के नए एपिसोड में एडिटर श्रुति सरकार ने Ardra Organics के Founder Lakshmi Kunnath से बातचीत की। इसमें इनकम टैक्स में छूट, GDP ग्रोथ से लेकर Gen Z के लिए बजट से जुड़ी खास बातों पर चर्चा भी हुई।
#budget2025 #unionbudget2025 #Budget2025Expectations
#Budget2025ExpectationsUpdates #budgetanalysis, #Budget2025startups,
#budgetexpectations, #budgetpredictions #agriculturalsector
#budget2025incometax #incometax #waterconservation #gdpgrowth #incometax
#incometaxslab
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Budget 2025 Expectations: Will It Ease The Cost Of Living For The Middle Class? :: https://www.goodreturns.in/news/budget-2025-expectations-will-it-ease-the-cost-of-living-for-the-middle-class-1402997.html?ref=DMDesc
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#budget2025 #unionbudget2025 #Budget2025Expectations
#Budget2025ExpectationsUpdates #budgetanalysis, #Budget2025startups,
#budgetexpectations, #budgetpredictions #agriculturalsector
#budget2025incometax #incometax #waterconservation #gdpgrowth #incometax
#incometaxslab
Also Read
Debt Mutual Funds: Expectations From Budget 2025 On Tax And Yield Benefits :: https://www.goodreturns.in/personal-finance/planning/debt-mutual-funds-expectations-from-budget-2025-on-tax-and-yield-benefits-1403095.html?ref=DMDesc
Budget 2025 Special: Best Stocks To Buy On Live Trading Session On Budget Day :: https://www.goodreturns.in/personal-finance/investment/budget-2025-special-best-stocks-to-buy-on-live-trading-session-on-budget-day-1403091.html?ref=DMDesc
Budget 2025 Expectations: Will It Ease The Cost Of Living For The Middle Class? :: https://www.goodreturns.in/news/budget-2025-expectations-will-it-ease-the-cost-of-living-for-the-middle-class-1402997.html?ref=DMDesc
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NewsTranscript
00:00Budget 2025. Hello and welcome. My name is Shruti Sarkar and you are watching Good Returns.
00:12And future focus for Budget 2025, in this episode, we are going to talk about startups.
00:20From corporate sector to education sector, to CapEx, to GDP, everything seems so important
00:29right before the budget. And today we have a special guest, Lakshmi Kunnath, founder
00:35Adra Organics. Hello, Lakshmi. Hi, Shruti. Hi. My first, very first question to you is,
00:44do you expect any kind of tax benefits for the startup sector in the upcoming Budget 2025?
00:51So, Shruti, let me just give you a brief background about myself and also about Adra
00:58Organics. So I'm a chartered accountant who was with the corporate world for almost 18 plus years,
01:04variety of industries from banking to healthcare sector to consumer durables and IT. So from that,
01:13I took a leap jump to something which is very, very different from what I've done in the past,
01:17which is sustainable organic farming. So we founded Adra Organics close to 10 years back,
01:25where we had taken a barren land and we started converting that land into organic farming land.
01:31So the process was quite learned. I mean, quite a big learning curve for us, not something that
01:37we had done in the past. And through the process of converting this land, we understood what is
01:45the value of sustainable farming. So my focus for the budget also, the discussion that I would
01:51like to focus is what the government can do in terms of sustainable farming. So today what we
01:57are seeing, budget allocation does happen. I mean, there's a big focus on agriculture and
02:00agricultural produce. To what extent can we have specific budget allocation for sustainable organic
02:08farming? That is going to be my focus. The first area that I would want to emphasize is on water
02:12conservation. Now, we know that there are different ways of water optimization that happens
02:18today and budget allocation happens towards the optimization part, which is when water is actually
02:23present in your land. And how do you optimize through drip irrigation and spray irrigation and
02:28different other means of optimizing the water usage. But what I want to focus is what I want
02:36the budget to have specific allocation is on water conservation. What happens when your water tables
02:41are depleting year on year? And this is a classic issue that we are facing for not just in Karnataka,
02:48which is where our primary land focuses, but across, it's across the states. So what is that
02:53that the government can do as a spending towards water conservation? Now, when I'm talking about
02:58water conservation, we know India is a land of just valleys of monsoons. It's either huge floods
03:04or it's drought. And a lot of farmer suicides happens due to drought. So one thing is when
03:11there is rain, when there are rains happening, how do we conserve this water? What kind of
03:16rainwater harvesting systems and processes can be put in place in and around villages?
03:21And for those systems to be placed, there should be specific grants and schemes that is allocated
03:26by the budget, which is focused on improving the water tables in each of these regions.
03:32So that is one area that I would definitely want budget 2025 to focus on.
03:38Right. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Sustainability, net zero, carbon emissions, I think
03:44the budget will focus in these areas and also the EV sector. Moving on,
03:53say apart from the expected tax benefits for the startup sector, what is your overall
03:59expectations? You know, let's address the elephant in the room, probably tax relief for
04:03common man or some kind of tax benefits for MSMEs. What is your expectation? Another big area that
04:11we think we should be focusing with respect to agri is agri infrastructure, agricultural
04:15infrastructure. So when I'm saying agricultural infrastructure, there are two parts to it.
04:19One is a physical infrastructure referring to the warehouses and the logistics that can be provided
04:24for marginal farmers that could be central depositories or warehouses that can have focus.
04:30Now, if I have to take my classic example today, I sometimes need to do a distress sale of my
04:36produce because there is not enough storage or the adequate techniques that is required to store
04:42my product. And therefore, I'm forced to sell it at a distress. But if there was adequate warehousing
04:49and whole storage facilities at certain central depositories or regions that is there available,
04:54which I could make use of at a subsidized rate, then the time to market is something that I could
05:01actually increase and could have a stable income in terms of agricultural produce. Now, this just
05:07does not apply to me, but across all farmers or marginal farmers that are there in the country.
05:12And the second part of it is the digital infrastructure. Today, India boasts of
05:16digital infrastructure in terms of UPI and the ONDC platform. So, how can we have certain grants
05:22or schemes that is focused on leveraging the ONDC platform itself, where it connects farmers
05:27directly to the consumers? We do have e-commerce players, but if the government itself can intervene
05:33there and then produce some kind of a platform which integrates both ends from farming to the
05:38end users, if there can be certain specific schemes from the budget. Now, that would be a big area of
05:45input that we could expect from the budget. Now, the third area is a ground agricultural
05:49universities. Now, we visit as a part of our business to a lot of agricultural universities
05:55to learn the processes and see what we could do in terms of sustainable farming. So, one input is
06:00that while a lot of inputs we get with respect to use of pesticides and chemical farming,
06:05there's not much that we get input in terms of sustainable farming. So, it could be certain
06:10grants given for test pilots around agricultural sustainable farming and organic farming methods,
06:16traditional farming methods. That's another big input that we could expect from budget because
06:20I think there should be definitely a big focus towards agricultural produce. 70% of our economy
06:25previously was in agriculture. So, that is something that we need to revive and we need
06:29to revive for a better way. Absolutely. It's a cycle, you know, it's not only expectations
06:36are not only for startups, then there is agricultural sector for farmers, for MSMEs. So,
06:44a lot is going on. There are market expectations. In fact, in our Good Returns exclusive polls where
06:49we spoke to market experts from various sectors, they said that green energy, sustainability,
06:56these are very important for future. I know we have our net zero target until, you know,
07:02the target is 2070 and it's quite far off compared to the European countries or the US,
07:08but I think it's time that we take this very, very seriously. Moving on, Lakshmi, apart from this,
07:17what is your overall expectations from the budget, say any tax relief for the common man,
07:21for the salaried sector? Because we are all, you know, looking forward to some kind of relief,
07:28especially for, you know, the talk is that people whose income level is more than 15 lakhs will
07:35probably get some kind of relief. What are your thoughts? Yeah. So, definitely, I think this is
07:42one of the biggest hot topic that everybody discusses on a tax release for the middle income
07:47group, or even I wouldn't just limit it to the middle income group. I think the disparity between
07:52corporate taxes and personal income tax in India is really, really big. If you see it's anywhere
07:57from 35% to, it goes up to 42% at very high slabs, if you include surcharge, right? So, and whereas
08:06corporate taxes are 25%. So, the disparity is really huge. So, the expectation of, I think,
08:11across everyone in the country is that there would be tax reliefs. And I would believe that
08:16there should be no taxes on personal income for any household which has income less than
08:2210 lakhs per annum. I mean, just think of it, you're talking about a, I mean, a family living,
08:27a family of four living in an urban city, the kind of expenses, cost of living and EMI that
08:33they have to pay, the household expenses that they have to pay, fuel, petrol cost, everything
08:39is on a rise and the cost of inflation, I mean, inflation is only on the rise. You see, the real
08:43inflation is pretty much on the rise when you look at prices going up or any of the household
08:48expenses going up. So, given that schooling, of course, schooling and healthcare, that's another,
08:53there's another aspect to it. So, given that the costs are skyrocketing across the roof,
09:00so definitely there are calls for a tax relief because people are not able to save. Today,
09:05if you see leave alone, leave alone saving, people are not even able to do a discretionary spend.
09:10Now, we do talk about salted caramel popcorns and caramel popcorns, but if only people visit the
09:16cinema houses, would they be able to spend on that, right? So, even if you have to spend,
09:21if a family of four has to spend towards going for a movie night out, I mean, people think twice.
09:28Really, you have to think twice when you're looking at an average, the household which has
09:32income less than 10 lakhs should not be taxed at all. That is the first thing. There should be a
09:37revision in this tax structures, tax structures for even 15 lakhs and above, say 15 lakhs to say
09:4325 lakhs. I think we should look forward to some relief that is coming in those slabs. Maybe there
09:50should be one, a structural reform in terms of the number of slabs itself and also look at reliefs
09:56across the board for the different slabs that is there today in terms of income tax. That is one
10:02part of it. The second is interest on FDs. Now, FDs that you earn is very, very, the rate of
10:08interest on FDs is very, very less. It's five to six percent on an average, if I'm saying a tenure
10:12of say 12 to 24 months. But when you are having your interest income itself so less, a tax, a
10:22levied on that on the slab rates, it further deteriorates your interest in actually putting
10:27in FDs, right? So, how will the government encourage people to save when the return on those
10:34instruments are very, very less? So, there should be some kind of a reform also on the interest on
10:40FDs. Next, big thing that happened last time was long-term capital gains. Oh my God.
10:49Given India is not a country where there are a lot number of social security schemes,
10:54one area where people really look forward to is creating some amount of wealth for your
10:58retirement at least is through the markets. Now, that being a considerably big source
11:04of income and where I think today equity is a game where a lot of retail investors are entering the
11:11market, right? Previously, that was not the case. So, I think the government should do something to
11:17increase this impetus that people are showing towards the primary markets and the secondary
11:21markets. So, we definitely look forward to a couple of changes there. One is on indexation
11:27coming back. Cost of inflation is a cross, be it for your household consumables or your
11:32immovable property. So, a need is definitely required to be taken care of the cost of
11:37inflation and therefore indexation, we propose that it comes back for the return and also the
11:45long-term gains on securities if they can be reworked on because there is a cost to the
11:51patients that we have over the time that we have put in. So, we are looking at some kind of
11:57changes, structural changes there as well. Sure. Lakshmi, you spoke about cost of living,
12:03very, very topical thing and not only for urban, you know, the thing is there are several things
12:10linked. You also spoke about FD. So, let's talk a little bit on the macro side. Now,
12:15we have the last GDP numbers were quite bad, 5.4 percent. Inflation is on the rise,
12:24it's over 5 percent and I think due to, this is also driven by food inflation where probably in
12:34an urban sector where we have salaried people, they could probably still go and buy groceries
12:41in a very higher cost, yes, but I want to know more about the rural economy. We want to talk
12:47about that, that you rightly said that, you know, if we are getting, if we want to invest in FDs and
12:54the interest that we earn back is so less, then how do we save? And then if we go and invest in
13:01risky assets as in the stock market, I was just speaking with a few fund managers and they are
13:07extremely cautious now that we don't know, we don't want to talk about capital gains and we
13:13definitely don't want to talk about GST is what they said. We are very cautious and you would see
13:18a lot of volatility happening in the stock market in the past few days because they don't know,
13:24they're all, you know, booking profits. So, GDP, the growth is slowing and inflation is on the rise.
13:32We have a RBI monetary policy meeting in Feb 1st week and the expectations are that the repo rate
13:39will be unchanged at 6.5%. Now, our Prime Minister Narendra Modi always speaks about
13:46Vixit Bharat. I just wanted to know your view that with all these scenarios and obviously we have
13:56external risks too. For example, we never know that when and where US President Donald Trump
14:04will put tariffs on. Right now, the focus is on China and Russia and Canada but we never know,
14:10right? So, what's your take on, you know, overall growth and do you think that India will become a
14:17developed country by 2047 or overall macro tech? Yeah, so I think you put it very well, Shruti. I
14:27mean, we have very big plans, at least our Prime Minister has very big plans for India where we
14:32target growth to $40 trillion headquartered by 2027, which is almost 11% KGAR growth,
14:40if we actually see from today till 2047. Now, if we need to attain that kind of a growth,
14:47there are a couple of areas that we definitely have to focus on. I think one of the biggest areas
14:52is, I mean, today if the GDP has to grow to that extent, what are some of the interventions that
14:58is required? One is the consumption. Today, you know that there is a slowdown in the economy and
15:03consumption is really on the lower side. Now, what do you do to increase consumption from a
15:07common man? The first thing is, you put more money in the hands of the common man. It can
15:12be both in the urban areas and the rural areas. In rural area, one area which I was, we were just
15:19debating between some group of friends who were thinking on what would revive the economy to a
15:24greater speed is increasing the minimum wages, the manager wages that you pay to the wages,
15:31you increase it, but that has to be in proportion to the productivity that you're realizing out of
15:36it. So, when you have this minimum wage increase of, which is currently I think around 300 per day
15:43per labourer, it varies across states, but on an average it's about, it varies from 275 to 300
15:49per day. So, when you increase that, that should be the, there should be a contract with the each
15:55of the labour forces, maybe governed by the rural governing panchayats, where you have employment
16:01generated through these MNREGA employer wages to infrastructural projects. So, we have big focus
16:08on infrastructure. So, how are we leveraging the present labour which is present in the country,
16:13employing them, giving them money for purchasing power increase, for consumption increase,
16:18and also utilizing them for productivity? It should just not be freebies, that's what I'm
16:23coming to say. So, whatever is being given out should in terms contribute to productivity. So,
16:29how can we leverage this labour force that is present towards infrastructural projects? That is
16:35something that we should be doing. When we're talking about urban economy, then we're talking
16:39about tax consumption, how much we can pay back to the consumer today, to the households today,
16:45so that they can increase their consumption at a much greater levels. Another thing that we would,
16:51I would propose is, can we look, re-look at the excise duties that is being currently
16:56levied on fuel? If you see the fuel cost in India is much, much higher than when you compare to the
17:03global standards. So, this can, that definitely is a leverage point and fuel is just not an input
17:09at a household level, it is also an input into the industrial, it's a huge raw material for
17:14industrial output. So, there are different areas in which one fuel cost reduction will be impacted
17:22in giving purchasing power to the common man at different levels. So, that is one another area
17:27that I would look at, how you can increase purchasing power to the households. Right, right.
17:36Lakshmi, I think we have covered it all. We spoke about rural economy and then, you know,
17:40the startup, agricultural sector, farmers, consumption, cost of living. Before I let you go,
17:48I, we have a lot of Gen Z viewers, you know, who have just started working, probably a few
17:54Gen Alpha viewers who were fresh out of college and some of the terms may sound very technical
18:00to them right now. So, if probably you had to say to them that before the budget, you know,
18:08what should they probably think about or what should they focus about, what would that be?
18:14Well, of course, it's budget time. So, a lot of discussions are happening around
18:19budget. But one key area that I would definitely want them to start looking at is how they could
18:26look at wealth creation as a whole and what should be happening and what should they be doing
18:33from their end towards wealth creation. So, the participation in the markets, I think participation
18:39in the markets is a very key thing that they should start small, maybe start very small,
18:45because yes, they've just started out. So, they have a long, long time ahead of them. So, they can
18:51go test out the markets, understand how the markets work and slowly but steadily, I think
18:57consistency is key here, slowly but steadily start dipping into the markets and contribute
19:05towards the capital markets. I think what is most important is
19:09contribution towards the capital markets, how they could fuel the engine of growth by contributing
19:15there. I think that would be my key piece of suggestion that I would give to the Zenzi,
19:21because budget happens year on year, but this is something that is a lifelong preparation.
19:26Absolutely, absolutely. Well, some really great insights to what is expected in the budget.
19:32And thank you so much, Lakshmi, for joining us today. We are speaking with Lakshmi Kundat,
19:38founder, Adra Organics. Thank you viewers for watching us.