One of the domains severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic are start-ups. According to the report released by NASSCOM, about 40 per cent of Indian start-ups had to stop their operations due to the pandemic conditions. To understand the entrepreneur’s expectations from Budget 2021, BW HOTELIER interacted with Wat-a-Burger, Fixcraft, We Founder Circle Cashaa, and Supply note.

Accelerate recovery for the F&B industry

The COVID-19 pandemic not only severely jerked the hospitality sector but also brought the food and beverage industry to its knees. Over time, the food and beverage industry has tried its best to move forward by incorporating renewed measures for ensuring the safety of their guests and staff but is this enough to revive the industry?

Responding in a negative, Farman Beig, founder and CEO, Wat-a-Burger said, "Due to coronavirus outbreak, food and beverage industry has suffered a major blow. Also, given that this particular sector employs a huge number of semi-skilled and under-skilled human resources, it becomes imperative to enable a fast recovery system."

He further stated that the Centre should simplify the process for getting multiple licenses for setting up a F&B business. 

He added, "The sector requires reintroduction of the inputs tax credit. Hence, the budget is expected to provide the sector with smooth compliance and regulatory procedures and credit flow streams to accelerate the recovery."

Need capital support for the automobile industry

One of the driving factors of the travel and tourism sector is the automobile industry. With the dip in travel due to the pandemic, layoffs, and reducing car sales, it is difficult for the industry to survive independently. Commenting on the same, Vivek Sharma, Founder and CEO, Fixcraft said, "Overall automobile industry has been suffering for quite long. Due to COVID 19, the situation has become even more challenging. The upcoming budget is expected to address this long-standing situation."

He highlighted that maintaining a strong capital support is imperative for the start-up community. Due to the uncertainty attached to the start-up segment, investors also hesitate in investing. "Hence a major fund allocation is required to keep the wheel rotating. There is also a need to ensure the ease of business procedures at all levels," he added.

Incentivise the start-up funding!

Piling on the unmet requirements of start-up ecosystem, the COVID-19 pandemic has left the start-ups empty-handed. On the one hand, the pandemic did lead to an increased pace of technological adoption. On the other hand, it has made the investors have become more calculative and restrained.

Elaborating on the subject, Neeraj Tyagi, Founder and CEO, We Founder Circle said, "The previous budget did not completely address the expectations and requirements of the start-up ecosystem. There were some misses, including – working capital crunch, tax parity on capital gains, etc. This time the expectations are more due to pandemic, which makes it a big opportunity too if addressed right."

"After the COVID- 19 outbreak, start-ups are leading the technology adaptation across the sectors. This has further built an interest among corporate to invest in start-ups and technology-oriented projects. Therefore, this is the right time for the government to incentivize the start-up funding and work towards relaxing the policies to encourage angel investors to invest more. Also, the government needs to push major fund allocation and also lower the GST, which currently has narrowed the scope of maneuvering for start-ups," he said. 

Immediate, calculative steps needed for recovery 

Underscoring the need to pay attention to the micro-businesses to revive the economy, Kumar Gaurav, Founder and CEO, Cashaa said, "I am sure the government will give adequate finance for micro-business who are destroyed in Covid 19. Co-operative societies and NBFC who financed most of the microloans should get a compensation package or liquidity for faster recovery of the economy."

Cashaa provides a platform to operate fiat and crypto transactions from one dashboard. Commenting on the requirements of the crypto industry, he continued, "As the Supreme court has already removed the ban, the crypto industry will need some time to foster innovation in crypto in India. At this stage, the only good thing to reduce the damage is to not over-regulate it." 

Taking the line of thought forward, Kushang, CEO and Co-Founder, SupplyNote, concluded, "The start-up ecosystem needs funds and capital now more than ever. The government needs to facilitate the capital inflow from all possible channels. The budget should remove the corporate dividend distribution tax or levy DDT at a low rate to encourage foreign investors. Secondly, start-ups should be able to get easy loans at low-interest rates. At this point, it's all about taking immediate steps for faster recovery."