“Desh Stack e-portal for skilling will help retail”

He added,“In addition, it will help increase overall employment in this sector. The various initiatives around urban-planning, rural development, infrastructure development and logistics and transportation will ease movement of people and resources and facilitate faster distribution for retail. This will help reduce the overall wastage especially for perishables, which is a big worry in retail.”

Further elaborating in the context of retail he added, “The emphasis on ‘Ease of Doing Business 2.0.’ should bring a better policy and regulatory environment for retail; on this front, work on a national retail policy is already underway. While the extended Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) for the hospitality sector is a welcome move and should help restaurants, the same could have been extended to other forms of retail as they too are high-contact businesses that have been hit by the pandemic. Due to the constant lockdowns and restrictions, the entire retail sector needed support, which has not come forth. We did expect some kind of relief for individual income tax payers to propel consumption, which is missing from the budget. The good news, however, is that no additional surprise taxes have been imposed and this will help maintain the status quo as far as taxation is concerned.”