Technology firms and startups focused on new-age platforms, such as drones, space imagery, and artificial intelligence, will likely be at the forefront of the list of beneficiaries as the Budget seeks to democratise technology in a concerted push toward digitisation.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed a slew of initiatives on Tuesday, with technology at the centre, to boost a wide range of industries, including skilling, agriculture, education, mental health, logistics, and the support of small and medium businesses.
According to Nasscom, the IT industry body, the Budget is betting big on technology and will help shape this decade as India’s “Techade” decade.
“Digital and IT have been given a central place in the Budget. It is one of the four pillars of governance. Be it logistics, health, education, language translation, IT has been given an important place,” Ashwini Vaishnaw, minister for electronics and IT, said at a briefing.
The Budget, according to Rajesh Gopinathan, managing director of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), provides many growth opportunities for the technology industry across sectors like railways, healthcare, education, financial services, and regulatory bodies, which will help India grow faster.
“If you start reading the indicators – be they investments in STEM, R&D, innovation, digital currency and blockchain – they underscore that India’s position as a powerhouse will depend upon its dominance on technology,” CP Gurnani, managing director of Tech Mahindra told ET. “We will be a powerful nation because we are not only 5G enabled, but the broad spectrum of the country is technology enabled”.
The government also announced a big thrust toward using drones and start-ups will be encouraged to launch a ‘Drone Shakti’ project to facilitate drone usage through varied applications and also allow for usage of drones “as a service”. Sitharaman also announced use of drones by farmers for land surveying, spraying of insecticides and digitisation of land records.
In a statement, Nasscom said, “It (the Budget) is focused on providing India with a strong foundation for the Techade and establishing it as a global hub in terms of technology innovation.”
It did, however, point out that some issues were left unaddressed, such as increased emphasis on industry-led R&D in emerging technologies, enabling clarifications to allow units in special economic zones (SEZs) flexibility to adopt the hybrid work model, and simplifying ESOP taxation by making the taxation regime available to all DPIIT recognised start-ups and taxing employees only when they sell the shares.
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