Budget 2018 Expectations – Tushar Kumar, Founder and CEO, Medlife
While the year 2017 witnessed significant developments in the medical devices sector, no significant rules, policies or regulations were announced specific to the e-pharmacy sector considering online pharmacies is changing the way healthcare delivery is being pursued in India.
From this year’s budget, we hope to see GST reduction on key drugs so that our end consumer is benefited from this. Something we would like to see is the implementation of new rules within medicines and healthcare for chronic diseases such as diabetes, thyroid, cardio, cancer etc.
We are expecting a positive change for our Industry and this budget will help in making healthcare more simple, affordable and accessible to common people. After implementing the focused life coverage and personal accident coverage through banking sector for common man, we are looking forward to enhance coverage of health protection scheme launched last year budget to build a robust OPD healthcare environment in the country.
This year, the budget should create an environment conducive to business. The biggest concern for start-ups is angel investments, which have been identified as capital gains. The rules around eligibility to claim these benefits are unclear and the approval process is tedious. There is also a need for consistent and predictable taxation policies, which will encourage growth of the digital economy. Digital economy includes several start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises who need funding, which makes it important that taxation of the difference between share premium and fair market value (FMV) is exclusively applied in conditions where there is actual use of unaccounted money or other collateral purposes.
Furthermore, we hope online pharmacy sector can be given more prominence in form of financing options, subsidies, clearer laws. In an industry boggled by unethical practices, Medlife is determined to abide by statutory requirements to sell prescription drugs, like antibiotics, only against valid doctor’s prescriptions.
