“Interim Union Budget 2019 contains no reforms for the start-up ecosystem” – Says Prodyut Bora, CEO, Bonphul Air Products Pvt Ltd.

The budget seems to be more empowering one for the masses as the budget kept its focus on rural, small and medium enterprises and middle-class households. While this is an interim budget and the actual realization of the visions (such as the changes in direct taxes in favour of the middle-class) will have to wait till the roll-out of the full budget post the general election.

Furthermore the budget speech did not contain even a single reform directly related to start-up ecosystem. The budget lacked a few expected measures. We were hoping to see a positive action on the issue of Angel Tax which is a major concern but the overall the budget in fact did not have much in store for the start-ups. Though the interim finance minister Piyush Goyal mentioned ‘start-ups’ in his speech quite a few times, there was no major announcement for the ecosystem.Hence the government has not done anything to encourage the sector or fix the issues. Moreover the availability of domestic money needs to be improved for the start-ups