I believe we should look at the Budget as a part of the process of governance and direction. We are encouraged by the fact that the new government at the Centre under Prime Minister Narendra Modi plans to collaborate with the States on the issue of GST introduction, which we think will boost investment as well as consumption.
A time bound introduction of the GST will surely help in building an integrated national market for goods and services and will reduce the cost of doing business. It will also bring down the prices.
The government?s intent to reduce inflationary pressure is evident from the announcement of ?Price Stabilisation Fund? and its earlier directive to the States on de-listing fruits & vegetables from APMC. The government?s vision to accelerate setting up of a National Market by collaborating with the state governments to re-orient their respective APMC Acts and to provide for private market yards is encouraging. We believe that modern trade can play a critical role in bridging the gap between the price paid by consumers and price realised by farmers and will play an important role in containing food inflation in sustainably.
Krish Iyer
The writer is CEO-India, Walmart
