Restaurant industry feels ignored in budget, says denial of input tax credit is critical for survival

The much awaited budget 2021 yet again brought disappointment to the restaurant sector that was worst affected by the pandemic. It’s very surprising that an industry that employs around 8 million people in the country doesn’t even have a single mention in the first ever digital budget presented by the finance ministry.

“It’s very disappointing that the FM has ignored our industry yet again. We have huge losses because of the pandemic. Reinstating the GST input would have helped in promoting more investments and would have helped us save costs every month,” said Amit Bagga, Co-founder of Daryaganj who added that the sector employed 7 million people pre-covid and post covid the number would be down by at least 30% and these reforms would have helped get employment back for the ones who have lost their jobs.

Also Read: Restaurants demand rationalization on GST, safety-net for workers in budget 2021

According to the experts, this was the time when the sector that was hugely affected because of the extend lockdown and closure required the utmost support but to much surprise the government ignored the sector.

“No support to the hospitality industry ever and ever is very devastating. Industry is at its recovery stage and no reforms at all means no relief at all.  Ours is the most affected industry and some reliefs could have been a recovery catalyst for the battered economy,” added Jasmeet Banga, Founder Pirates of Grill who had to close his popular restaurant Pra Pra Prank due to the pandemic.

Commenting on the same Rachel Goenka - CEO & Founder of The Chocolate Spoon Company pointed, "The budget is extremely disappointing as yet again the hospitality industry has been left out. Given the severity of the impact of the pandemic on the hospitality sector, we were hoping for impactful, immediate and near-term support. We were equally disappointed with the continued denial of input tax credit, which is critical for survival.”

With the onset of this unprecedented pandemic scenario, it has been a huge loss in the economic domain of our country. Probably, this is the second or the third time that India witnessed depression, and there can be no negligence of the fact that the toll it took globally and nationally, especially for a country like India is quite vehement. So much so that, even the most resilient sector like Food and beverage faced a tremendous amount of downfall.

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“We were really looking forward to this Union Budget as a means of recovery. However, we are a little disappointed with the outcome. It might deem beneficial for many other industries, but when it comes to the hospitality industry, honestly speaking, our hope for a recovery now seems to be far distant. The amount of loss that was incurred upon us is profound, and to date we are still trying to cope up. And our only means of resurfacing back was through this Union budget. We have expected that for small and medium scale industries the tax rate should have been reduced. Also, it would have been beneficial if we could avail the GST input tax credit,” added Debaditya Chaudhury, MD, Chowman Hospitality Pvt. Ltd.