The Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE), the apex body of the biotech sector in India, has sought an increase in weight tax deduction and extending its applicability to activities such as clinical trials and setting up venture capital funds.
In its pre-Budget memorandum to the Union finance ministry, the association also sought an increase in grants for advanced skills development programmes, exemption from excise/custom duties on life-saving medicines as well as on their raw materials and also on capital goods and consumables, CROs, diagnostic kits apart from providing tax holidays and soft loans, price fixing for ethanol and allocation of corpus fund which would help the industry’s growth.
?The recommendations, if implemented, will enable the Indian biotech sector to achieve the target growth rate of 25-30% and generate revenues of $100 billion by 2025, while empowering the domestic industry to become global power,” said PM Murali, president, ABLE.