Merry Christmas, Adults!

The adult Christmas season is back! This is the time of the year when adults make wishes and hope that the Finance Ministry will play their Santa. Yes, it is time for the Union Budget.

Even if the wishes are mostly quite narrow and mostly selfish (same like those of the kids, no?), the wishes are made to sound serious and profound because it is made by adults. Hence, even I don't want to be left behind. Here are my socks with the narrow and selfish wishes for my "adult" Christmas. I will wake up day after and hope to be surprised, Good night!

Sock 1. When repaying loans to banks, there is no TDS on interest but for repaying loans to NBFCs there is. It is a major logistical nightmare for NBFCs to make sure their borrowers have paid TDS and then do reconciliation. Remove this requirement.

Sock 2. Enable smaller Indian NBFCs (<1000 cr) doing MSME finance borrow from international sources by having Govt bear a part of the hedging costs. Put constraints-Loans upto USD 20 mn, cap the landed interest rate & allow only for 3+ year tenor! Will promote smaller NBFCs. We need more for fin inclusion

Sock 3. Remove all the confusion with AIF taxation. Let go! Enable foreign capital in-flows to increase. This year, if the Fed raises interest rates, all the liquidity will suddenly start vanishing from India. Make it easier for them to come in to India.

Sock 4. Expand NCTGC for 3 more years - charge a small fee -allow loans to new MSME customers and remove interest rate cap.

Sock 5. Ask SIDBI to commit atleast 80% of their balance sheet to providing credit enhancement for loans to MSMEs made by smaller NBFCs directly or through structured products. Today 99% of SIDBI exposure is to A and above Financial Institutions.