The Government should continue to encourage digitalisation, creation of rural e-infrastructure, and to provide additional incentives for research and development spending. Additionally, introducing more corporate tax benefits, simplifying tax regimes, and providing more sops under SEZ will make the business environment more conducive. Given the current work from home (WFH) situation, there is also a need to introduce easy norms for WFH especially for SEZ units for the IT/ITES sector. Further, enhancing land and labour laws would improve the ease of doing business.
— Arun Kumar Gupta, CFO, Newgen Software
Two immediate challenges need to be addressed: Teachers: They have been caught unaware, but have somehow managed. But the pedagogy of teaching online is very different than ClassRoom based training. Investment as well as directives in this regard are necessary. Access: In most families children need to share device with siblings or parents. In the lower economic strata, having mete access itself is a challenge. A concerted effort is necessary to provide equitable access, as a first step.
— Manoj Chawla, CBO, Tribyte Technologies
With the rise in the number of unicorns in 2021, the Government, in the Budget must consider the immense potential of the start-up community to help attain its goal of the single largest economy in the world. The Government must be committed to building a steady digital ecosystem capable of supporting this astronomical growth. They must also ensure seamless access to funding through schemes and favourable taxation for start-ups.
— Rasesh Seth, Founder, Nextyn
We have had a fantastic 2021 from the startup ecosystem perspective. With further Government support this growth could reach new heights. This could include simplification of GST rules with respect to availing of credits and monthly procedural requirements. Also an offset of capital gains by investing in other start-ups could help boost investments and contribute to the growth of the overall startup ecosystem.
— Abhishek Goenka, Head and CIO, RPSG Capital Ventures
With the announcement of National Education Policy back in 2020, India took a bold step to transform the highly inward approach it carried towards higher education space. There is a huge potential to take the Indian higher education system to the international levels. Post the announcement of NEP, UGC took a plunge to put in place a legislative framework for the internationalisation of education. Things must take shape faster; India's education system should be ready to sync with the global aspiration
— Prateek Gujral, Principal Advisor (South Asia), Truman State University
Our expectation from budget is 2 fold - one is a apprentice levy on all organisations paying wage bills more than 15 crores. This levy should be charged at 0.5% - 1% of the wage bill. This levy can be used to build apprentice training programs which can help massive number of students getting out of higher education to access these programs and get skilled. Employers will benefit from a great talent pipeline in this process.
— Sumesh Nair, Co-founder & CEO of Board Infinity
The Budget will be a watershed moment in many ways, as a result of the despair that gripped the country during the previous fiscal year. The COVID-19 has thrown numerous difficulties at humanity that will take years to overcome, but the budget can marshal a positive start from the negative impact and help sustain growth and bring back prosperity. There is a need for the Government to subsidise student education loans to make it simpler for students to seek higher education. The Government should encourage the educational institutions to collaborate more with academia to ensure that the curriculum given meets the demands of the industry. Academic institutions should be given special recognition and concessions for collaborating with industry to provide students with the necessary skills.
— Ashwani Awasthi, Managing Director, RICS School of Built Environment
India’s demographic advantage is as good as the health of the people. Keeping this philosophy in mind, there should be higher budgetary allocation towards the development of medical infrastructure, including affordable hospitals for the burgeoning middle class. With a larger share of the Indian population residing in rural India, Budget 2022-23 should also allocate resources in developing the primary healthcare infrastructure. Medical insurance should be exempted from GST, thereby bringing relief to middle class households. Lastly, the GST rates for medical products should be rationalized to bring uniformity.
— Rajiv Mistry, Founder & Managing Director, Ascent Group of Companies
Only a skilled and competitive workforce can help achieve this ambitious target. India’s youth need to be armed with the right mindsets and with tomorrow’s skillsets to be able to drive us towards the target. Corporate India and the world is craving for multi-skilled individuals who can contribute effectively. It is the marriage of relevant domain skills, soft skills and digital skills, that arms an individual with ability to contribute to building country’s evolving GDP.
— Girish Singahnia, CEO, EduBridge
As far as the education sector is concerned now that we have brought a well-drafted national education policy of 2020 (NEP 2020), we need a road map of 10 years that will articulate the way forward for the implementation of NEP 2020. We need a very strong budget for this and we cannot ignore or just say that look we don’t have the budget. We will have to cut down other expenses but provide enough money for the education budget because that is where the future lies in India.
— Nitin Potdar, Partner, J Sagar Associates
National Education Policy, 2020 demonstrated commitment to educational reforms and reaffirmed the recommendation of increasing public investment on education to 6% of GDP as recommended earlier. It will be a welcomed move but budgetary allocation merits detailing and attention. The Budget should also have more initiatives like National Educational Alliance for Technology so that skill-oriented courses like animation and design can be introduced at all school levels in view of the growing demand in the creative industries.
— Dr Manoj Singh, CEO, RUBIKA India