‘Dire need to cut fuel prices to enhance logistics efficiency’

T. A. Krishnan, CEO and Co-founder, Ecom Express Limited, “The logistics industry is one of the foundations of the Indian economy which has experienced immense growth over the past couple of years. With the improvement in logistics infrastructure, industry is witnessing a significant growth in demand generation leading to job creation. The expectations from the budget for the financial year 2023-24 are introduction of more supporting initiatives from the government such as further infrastructure projects along with focus in completion of ongoing road/highway projects, digital transformation and to create skilled workforce and related platforms for the logistics and transportation segments. We can expect Budget 2023-24 to be taxpayer friendly with focus on maximum disposable benefits. There is a dire need to consider reduction of excise/VAT on energy and fuel products such as motor spirit, high speed diesel, natural gas, crude oil along with enhancement of tax deduction limit to help lower income group. This will help to cut down logistics and transportation cost to a great extent. For a growing economy like India, it is important to reduce logistics costs to boost export competitiveness at a time when global firms are moving their manufacturing facilities to India to de-risk global supply chains.
The gig workers can also expect the announcement on implementation of social security cover, however, keeping this workforce away from taxation ambit will help build higher disposable income in the hands of a fairly large alternate employment pool in the country. Another much awaited ask from the government, given the global slowdown trends, is to consider Fuel and CNG subsidy or further tax reduction for 2023-24 to provide a trickle-down effect to the consumerism in the country. The industry also expects that the assessment process for GST returns should be improved across states to enable smoother operations. Currently, demands are coming in for frivolous reasons, leading to unnecessary appeals/litigation.”