The Hindu Business Line : Relax tax on employees

I request relaxation of income-tax on employees. I don't know why the Government is imposing more taxes on employees and waiving taxes on companies. All companies are earning more profits, but SEZs and companies are getting waivers. Give tax exemption up to Rs 2,00,000 for both men and women.

Chandra Sekhar Reddy. T,

Wipro Technologies,

Bangalore

Think of irrigation facilities

Let the Government think of agriculture and irrigation facilities, as 62 per cent of the population is dependent on agriculture. The priority must be to improve the economic condition of the farmers. What is the use of industrialisation and FDI, if the majority of the people are dying of starvation and where the poor farmer commits suicide. The Finance Minister must come out with steps to check unscrupulous stock market brokers.

Braja Bandhu Behera,

Advocate, Orissa High Court,

Bhubaneswar.

Take out SSI exemption

Small-scale industries have been exempted from excise duty up to a turnover of Rs 1 crore. This policy leads to large-scale fragmentation of units and excise nightmare to SSI industrialists as customers (who always are large players) demand supply from a non-excise unit. The SSI industrialists fragment their units and this again leads to purchase of cheap and low-tech machines which leads to waste of precious and costly labour, electricity and money. The SSI sector as a whole loses its growth momentum because of this. Finally when these sectors are opened up for foreign investment, local entrepreneurs suffer. Take out this exemption. It has only political justification and no economic justification. We may face initial pricing problems and may require time to adjust just the way big industry did after 1991. But this will lead to world-class growth in the medium and long term. In a few years, you will see SMEs performing in world-class conditions and growing to become large/international players.

Prasad Krishnappa

Proprietor,

Krishna Poly Industries, Bangalore

(Send in your budget wish list (in about 200 words) with a brief profile of yourself and a digital photograph, which may get published, to wishlist2007@thehindu.co.in)