The government has focussed on job creation as an underlying theme and this was very important, as has been the case with the emphasis on skill development, says Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson at India’s leading biopharmaceutical company Biocon. “I am glad that they are thinking of internships and apprenticeships as a way to skill the youth with budgetary allocation for supporting these internships at 500 top companies is also a welcome move,” she says.
To her, the second underlying theme of the budget has been about research and innovation. It has been talked about in the agri sector, particularly for climate resilient crop varieties.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman talks of operationising the Anusandhan National Research Fund for basic research and prototype development. And to further set up a mechanism for spurring private sector-driven research and innovation at commercial scale with a financing pool of Rs 1 lakh crore in line with the announcement in the interim budget.
While there is still need to read the fine print, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw feels, it is still not clear how the Rs 1 lakh crore is going to allocated and whether it will be as grants or as tax incentives. Also, need to still get a fix on how much of the total kitty is to be allotted for each sector? Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw also welcomes the move to support the startup economy, especially with the abolition of the angel tax. This, apparently in the “hope that there will be more investment, as a result in the startup economy.”
To Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, the changes in the tax slabs for the salaried employees, is also perhaps driven by the hope that the salaried will save more and spend more and in turn it will boost consumption. But then, that still remains to be seen as is the fine print around the other measures announced and the net impact they will make. Economic empowerment of women, for instance, was another important area that stood out in the budget speech by the finance minister, says Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.
On the whole, the signalling was good from the budget with all the steps in the right direction with some foundational measures, if implemented in the first of the five year term and built on over time then there could be much higher net impact.
Even in the measures taken for states like Bihar and Andhra Pradesh (which apparently was also a political necessity as leaders from both the regions are important coalition partners of the government) were all also for building infrastructure, says Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.
