By Pratyush Roy, VP, Go-To Market, Crayon Data India Pvt Ltd

“India is now the third largest ecosystem for start-ups globally and ranks second in innovation quality among middle-income countries.” The hon’ble FM Nirmala Sitharaman commences the 2023 budget on a positive note. The new budget has exceeded expectations. Under Make AI in India & Make AI work for India, AI diversification across sectors such as agriculture, health and sustainable cities is now a reality. With the set-up of 3 specialized AI centres in educational institutes, talent is set to boom and opportunities for India will be on the rise. This is a contrast to the macroeconomic changes that are happening across the globe. Further to this, private investments are growing again. The new budget stands to ramp up the virtuous cycle of investment and job creation.

Three mega trends -global offshoring, digitalization and energy transition is setting the base for the impending economic boom in India (Source: Morgan Stanley report). With the new measure to provide more entity Digi-lockers by enterprises, India is certainly on the right track towards a digital future. The measure also ensures secure storage and sharing of documents within the business ecosystem. This is a much-needed move for BFSI and Fintech.  In addition, digital payments have been widely accepted with a 76% increase in transactions in 2022. The fiscal support for this digital infrastructure is set to continue. India witnessed a 15,400% rise in start-ups over the past 6years. The National Data Governance Policy is set to enable access to anonymized data, thereby paving way for research and innovation for start-ups. Furthermore, the benefit of carry forward of losses on change of shareholding of start-ups from seven years of incorporation to ten years is another key incentive. We join hands in welcoming this budget and embarking towards becoming the third largest economy soon”.

Mr Chander Baljee, Chairman & Managing Director, Royal Orchid & Regenta Hotels: 

“In my view, the budget is very promising for our sector this year. Tourism has in some way been given the spotlight that was required for a long time. The focus on ‘Bharat Dekho’ is commendable as this is an initiative that will push Indians to explore India and see their own country like never before. 

However, there are several areas, especially in the hospitality industry that have been missed. There are no loans for long terms as well as no industry status which has been our request for years. 

Though, tourism has been recognised as one of the drivers for the economy, yet, the suggested 50 additional airports will certainly help the industry but will take another 3-5 years to be built. The same can be said for the 50 tourist destinations that will be selected. This will take a very long-time maybe even five to 10 years before completion. 

In my view, more prominence has to be given to our industry. There should be more focus on the connectivity of airports, especially from the city centres by road or metro. Tourist places should basically have clean and hygienic toilets, which should be permitted especially where the archaeological departments do not permit it. Finally, instead of food stalls at tourist destinations, there should be proper food courts and parking facilities”.

By Raghav Gupta, CEO & Co Founder Futurense Technologies Pvt Ltd. 

“We at Futurense, are very pleased with the government’s announcement of the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana 4.0 in the Budget ‘23. The key focus of On-the-job training, industry partnership, and alignment of courses with the needs of the industry, emphasized in the yojana is in line with the ethos of Futurense technologies. The scheme’s focus to cover new-age courses for Industry 4.0 like coding, AI, robotics, mechatronics, IOT, 3D printing, drones, and soft skills is much a welcomed move and critical in empowering the youth with modern technologies & software’s. The announcement of the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme to provide stipend support students through Direct Benefit Transfer is absolutely incredible, Futurense has been doing this since its inception and it is wonderful to see similar action by the government which will benefit 130+ crore young Indians from tier 2 & 3 towns.

Overall, we are very pleased with the government’s commitment to towards skill development, the focus on modern day technologies and the aligning of courses with the needs of the industry all these actions are set benefit the young Indians from tier 2 & 3 towns towards a bright future”.