Aravind SundaramBusiness leaders across India and across industries are keen on sharing their thoughts on the 2022 budget presented today. Thought Habitat is more than happy to recognize all their thoughts on the budget.
Mudit Garg, MD & Co-Founder, Vivaan Solar Private Limited
With the motive of Green and Clean India, the Financial Minister has allocated an additional Rs 19,500 ($2.62 billion) for production-linked incentives towards solar equipment manufacturing. This funds allocation will help in increasing the solar capacity by 280 GW by 2030.
The government’s focus is to manufacture high-efficiency modules and create integrated manufacturing units PV modules. The dependency on conventional energy and imports will decrease because of the improving Make in India plans. We are happy that the government is considering the solar sector and strategically working towards clean India going forward.
Aditya Kale, Founder & CEO, Imperial Logistics
The budget announcements were in line with expectations. The fund allocation for setting up national highways and setting up more economic corridors across various states will surely help the efficient last-mile deliveries and simulate regional economies to encourage local entrepreneurial initiatives.
Amrut Mehta, Director, Little Italy
The union budget brings a lot of hope as businesses and individuals look forward to receive help from the government in these trying times. The pandemic has been tough in all countries and industries. Many businesses have suffered due to government induced restrictions and lockdowns. The extension of ECLGS by the finance minister is a boon to the hospitality sector. This move will help the MSME sectors to cope up with the risks arising out of COVID induced challenges.
Susmitha Lakkakula – Founder, Cloud Tailor
India is currently in its ‘Startup moment’. Startups are in the limelight and entrepreneurship is beginning to be celebrated. In the current focus on startups and new found interest from private funds, ease of business and angel tax rules will define the next wave of support for our startup ecosystems. In the Budget 2022, there are incentives set aside under CGTMSE and for tax structuring. Focus on making Angel investments and tax holidays for startups will help improve the fledgling growth in this ‘Startup moment’ for India.
Kabir Bansal, Founder & Director, Medvraksh
The Financial Minister Nirmala Sitharaman says “I am confident that ‘Sabka Prayaas’, we’ll continue with strong growth.”
India in its third pandemic wave has suffered and lost a lot but thanks to the support of the government and people of India, vaccination speed is increasing. I keep my faith and interest in the Indians and expect that the Union Budget will definitely make the situation better.
Nirmala Sitharaman also mentioned the Open platform for National Digital Health Ecosystem, which will keep the digital record of all the health service providers and facilitators with their facilities and provide universal access to health services. This can be proved as a great step towards building a healthy nation. This can also spread awareness and provide healthcare facilities in rural areas.
National Tele Mental Health Program for the Mental Health Counselling is another great initiative by the government as people have suffered a lot during the lockdown and pandemic. This can surely degrade the rate of depression and other mental health disorders among the people.
Anmol Chawla, Founder & Director, VRAKSH Management Private Limited
One Class One TV Channel’ will be increased from 12 to 200 TV Channels to provide supplementary education in regional languages for class 1-12: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
The Union Budget 2022 has decided to launch 200 regional TV channels to expand SWAYAM PRABHA TV under the PM e-vidya scheme. This decision can promote the will to study among students and it will be a great initiative for the one who lacks the resources. During the pandemic, students have suffered with their education and lost their confidence, these steps can help them to build their keen interest again in their studies.
The Government also decided to launch the Digital University which will provide various courses in different sectors across the world. New skill development courses will be launched in digital mode. Students can see great progress in Digital India, working students can develop themselves according to their comfort. This will also help them to manage their time. The coordination between the digital university and other central universities will improve the educational sectors and look for the necessary reforms.
Krishan Agarwal, Head of Finance, 75F, India
The 2022 budget gives impetus to energy and infrastructure as one of the focus areas. The Government has factored in various projects that could boost the country’s infrastructure and economy. The emphasis on CAPEX expansion will also assist organisations in expanding their operations and pursuing new growth opportunities.
The infrastructure budget is a welcome relief as it will aid specialised financial organisations to fund infrastructure projects that require long-term capital. We are also pleased to see the government taking proactive steps towards energy transition, climate change, and sustainability in this year’s budget. It is the need of the hour to focus on sustainability and energy efficiency for businesses and building infrastructures.
We hope that the allocated funds will be used for projects to reduce carbon emissions and that the low-carbon development strategy will create new job possibilities in the country. The ease of doing business would also provide some relief for businesses to carry out operations smoothly.
Prem Kumar, Founder & CEO, Snapbizz
With the government unveiling the budget today, the focus for the fiscal year 2022-23 is clearly on infrastructure investments, digitization, and financial inclusion. The emphasis on infrastructure investments is likely to drive sustained employment growth while the MSME and Fintech sectors are expected to drive inclusive recovery and financial inclusion.
With accelerated digitization resulting from the pandemic and the Digital India push, the digital payments sector has flourished while redefining the retail sector. More reforms are also expected to be implemented to help small retailers become more Aatma Nirbhar, thereby sustaining and strengthening the local retail ecosystem.
Small merchants who are the backbone of our economy and national infrastructure are today embracing digital transformation, becoming more accessible to customers, and offering more streamlined solutions. The budget provides an impetus to Growth, Consumption and hopefully a Sentiment impetus too. While it is possible that the budget may fuel inflation, a consumption and growth push is urgently needed at this time. Daily consumption industries, such as FMCG, will benefit from a boost in recovery and growth.
Dhiresh, Co-Founder and CEO, Neem Tree Agro Solutions
The union budget 2022, caters well to the expectation of the farmers. Their pending MSP of 2.37 lakh crores for the Rabi season wheat and Kharif season paddy will be directly paid to them in their bank accounts, which I feel is an upright step.
Availability of credit facilities has always been an area for the government to ponder upon and the budget 2022 deals with it in an effective way. Also key steps like introduction of domestic schemes to reduce dependency on oilseed imports and infrastructure development by railways for small farmers was the need of the hour and I feel good to see it being incorporated in the Budget.
The expectations of the agritech industry was exorbitant from this year’s Union budget and the Government has presented some great initiatives, which is in alignment with the expectations. The promise to finance start-ups in agriculture and rural enterprises for farm produce value chain in accordance with NABARD is praiseworthy. Use of Kisan Drones for crop assessments, land records and spraying of insecticides is very convenient.
We firmly believe that this year is going to be the year of agritech startups, the year is also important as this is the target year for doubling the farmers’ income.
Kanav Singla, Founder & CEO Metadome
Global impact of the pandemic has accelerated technology and digital adoption across industries. And with the advent of the virtual world with Metaverse, all major big tech companies across the world are focusing on developing new tools to provide virtual immersive experiences for individuals and brands.
This year, the government was expected to take a progressive step towards making India a hub for emerging technologies like AR/VR/Blockchain, by including special incentives and subsidies for emerging tech and its users, to generate growth opportunities for this new industry. However, the announcement of a 30% tax on the income from digital assets; might see a fall in the number of digital creators that are looking to create NFTs for the virtual world.
Vibha Singh, VP, Strategy and Communication, Et MediaLabs
The union budget of 2022 has brought forward a lot of interventions, which once implemented meticulously and with utmost efficiency, can result in tremendous growth for the country.The government’s focus on Startups and them being looked at as the drivers of growth has been monumental in extending the period of incorporation of eligible start-ups by one more year for tax incentives.
This step will encourage the entire Startup ecosystem and might also result in a higher influx of new business ventures.The mention of 5G and details about its auction can be looked at as the foundation stone of growth for India’s digital economy, its businesses, and even its new-age consumers. 5G will be one of the major drivers to influence how the digital economy works and how consumers behave in a digital world.
Major Dinesh Sharma, Founder, Academy of Pastry & Culinary Arts
The government’s vision of developing a skill based education system will get a new direction with this year’s budget announcement. What is interesting is the government’s decision to develop digital infrastructure which is futuristic, especially due to students losing out on education during current pandemic crises. We need to be future ready.
Sumit Gupta, Founder, Whizard API
Tech-enabled startups have played a crucial role in empowering people to help them tackle the gripping effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The fact that our finance minister used a digital format to deliver her address in the Union budget 2022 speaks volumes about the use of technology for good governance.
Accordingly, innovation has been awarded an extended tax benefit of 1 year thereby giving the necessary impetus to startups working towards establishing an Atmanirbhar Bharat. Furthermore, digitization measures such as Drone shakti policy, digital banking and fintech amalgamation, digital university and introduction of digital rupee should help give the much needed thrust to establish a digital face of Amrit Kal – from India at 75 to India at 100.
Sumit Gupta, Founder, Viral Pitch
With 2 lakh cr of budget allocation for MSMEs, it’s more obvious than before that the startup ecosystem will be thriving like a rage.Now, it’s interesting to see that finally the separate Animation and Gaming Task force will be set up, and made its way to the budget offering immense potential to employ youth and empower them.
I am optimistic about the fact that this will clearly pave the emergence of new brands and creators in this space of Visual effects, Gaming and Comic Sector creating more opportunities to further accelerate creators’ economies. This will also lead to build a better and stronger base of our domestic capacity in the line of serving the markets and efficiently cater to global demands and collaborations with a pool of global creators in the niche.
Also, the introduction of digital rupee by using blockchain will indeed prove to be a booster for Fintech, making people more Crypto oriented this year. Certainly, Metaverse, NFT, Web 3.0 will have a significant role to play in the brand promotional landscape, starting from this year onwards.
Vaibhav Dange, Founding Member, Federation of Electronic Sports Associations India
Federation of Electronic Sports Association of India (FEAI) welcomes the move of the Government of India to set up a task force for Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, and Comics (AVGC) promotion. FEAI has been recommending policy intervention towards the promotion of AVGC at the national level as well as placing a strong emphasis on development across states through regional chapters.
We are enthused that the Government is focused on building domestic capacity for serving our markets along with the global demand. We firmly believe that the AVGC sector offers immense potential to employ youth and this move will lead to further strengthening the growing segment of Electronic Sports in India. The recent inauguration of ABAI AVGC Center of Excellence was also a progressive step in this direction and we are happy that things are moving ahead rapidly towards an Atmanirbhar Esports Ecosystem for India.
Atul Shrivastava, Group CEO & Executive Director at Laqshya Media Group
The union Budget underlined the government’s focus on long-term growth. As India’s economic growth is estimated to be 9.2% in the upcoming financial year so it would be good for all the industry and with overall growth, we are sure advertising & media will also show remarkable growth which was low due to the pandemic in the last couple of years.
As announced the National Highways to be expanded by 25,000 km under PM Gati Shakti mission. Highways are adding a new dimension to the growth of the OOH Industry as advertising on the Highways is emerging as very strong choice for brand building for many categories.
Keep watching this space for more updates!
Aravind Sundaram
Guest Author
