By Sanjeev Duggal, CEO and MD, Centum Learning

Considering the fact that  Indian economy has held its head high in times of global economic turmoil, our Finance Minister has presented a mixed budget quite favourable for aspiring entrepreneurs. Salient points pertaining to the sectors are as hereunder:

·         100% deduction of profits for Start-ups for  three out of first 5 years is great but MAT applicability on Start-ups will create hurdles in growth as it will impact the initial cash outflow of startups .

·         Govt. has decided to set up 1500 Multi Skill Training Institute across the country & allocated 1700 crore for these initiatives. However, the income of these centers should have been exempted from income tax under section 10 in order to provide further boost to the sector .

·         It has been proposed to exempt service tax on services provided under DDU GKY (Deen Dayal Upadhyay Grameen Kaushalya Yojana) and services provided by Assessing Bodies empanelled by Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship.  But Budget should have exempted the service taxes provided to Training partners registered under the said schemes too. Then benefit could be reaped thereby motivating training providers. Else part of the grant will still have to be given back to the Govt. in the form of service Tax which might be a little taxing for the skilling companies.

·         Govt. should have exempted income of skilling companies upto a certain limit under section 10 of Income tax Act as that will give impetus to the sector .

·         Govt. could have brought in some provisions for accelerated deduction of expenses on skill development by corporates.