Former BSE chairman, Sethurathnam Ravi - “There has been a very strong recovery in terms of collection in the form of GST in the past few years”

Sethurathnam Ravi, popularly known as S Ravi is the former chairman of Bombay Stock Exchange Limited (BSE). Currently he is the Founder and Managing Partner of Ravi Rajan & Co., an advisory and accountancy firm, headquartered in New Delhi, India.

When the Finance Minister of India Nirmala Sitharaman was all set to present the Union Budget on February 1, for the financial year 2022-23, rebate in taxation, simplifying investment and offering of further incentives to the Indian start-ups and MSMEs were the expectations from the same. After the presentation of the budget, Sethurathnam Ravi, the financial expert shares his views on the present taxation rates, the GST and how it affects the SMEs and the MSMEs.

Sethurathnam Ravi (S Ravi) Founder and Managing Partner, Chartered Accountants’ firm Ravi Rajan & Co. said, "Expectation on rationalization of GST is there so that there is relief to small producers specifically within the food and Pharma sectors. I believe that there will be larger focus on few industries like semiconductors, lithium batteries, infrastructure for renewable energy and Electric Vehicles and special boost to Green Energy therefore we can expect major measures in this direction."

Sethurathnam Ravi BSE

After the presentation of the Union Budget 2022, Sethurathnam Ravi expects that there will be some relief for the SME and MSME space with over 40 percent workforce engaged in the latter. In the last few years, we have seen, despite a strong covid outburst, a very strong recovery in terms of collection in the form of GST. According to Mr. Sethurathnam Ravi it has been a very progressive journey. It was full of challenges of acceptability. But now it has been accepted. The financial expert says that what is more important is how we address to the lower category of people, i.e., the MSME and the SME's who have to bring in more awareness and to make the cost of compliance lesser.

Sethurathnam Ravi also suggests that a platform should be created where data sharing can happen, an open-source data platform between the banks, the SMEs, the MSMEs and the GST collection. With this possible, the bankers can review the collection, the credit record, turnover record, services record etc, in a harmonious way. Mr Ravi concluded by saying that this is very important from the long-term perspective.