The Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today introduced the Union Budget 2024- 25 in the Parliament.
Ranjana Adhikari, Partner, IndusLaw said, “The Union Budget for 2024-25 has a noticeable emphasis on the adoption of technology across sectors and for various novel use cases (such as the integrated tech platform for IBC). The ambit of Digital Public Infrastructure has been expanded significantly to now include apps for agriculture, e-commerce, education, health, law and justice, logistics and urban governance. Skilling is one of the central themes of this Budget with the focus being on skilling that is aligned with the emerging needs of the industry. It is anticipated that at least a portion of the allocation for Prime Minister’s Package for Employment and Skilling will cover skilling in emerging technologies such as AI, drones and IoT.”
“On the R&D front, the announcement to operationalize the Anusandhan National Research Fund and to set up a financing pool of INR 1 lakh crore for private sector-driven R&D are welcome steps,” said Ranjana Adhikari.
“Though there are multiple announcements which will benefit the startup ecosystem generally, the industry was hoping for more a dedicated focus for AI and deep tech which will hopefully now come from the R&D initiatives that have been announced,” Adhikari added.
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