Budget 2012 must revive investment: Ajit Ranade

What should the next budget’s main priorities be? If you were to ask Ajit Ranade, Chief Economist of the Aditya Birla Group, he would prefer to avoid being seen as a fiscal hawk - where the first priority of the finance minister would be to balance his books.

According to Ranade, the Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, faces many constraints - including the huge interest burden on rising borrowings.

However, he told Firstpost’s R Jagannathan that the main task ahead of Pranab Mukherjee is to revive investment.

While fiscal consolidation is obviously important, he believes the investment cycle is more likely to be set off by a tax signal rather than a fiscal one.

See more Budget 2012 videos and expert views on Firstpost: Ajay Shah , Rupa Rege-Nitsure , Indranil Pan , Ashima Goyal , Jim Walker , DK Joshi , Ajit Ranade , Art Woo .

See more Budget 2012 issue based videos on Firstpost: Subsidies , Fiscal Deficit , Inflation , Taxation .