ETtech Opinion | Budget will help catalyse efforts to promote digitally inclusive India: Kalyan Krishnamurthy

The budget announcements aim to make essential services and amenities more affordable and accessible to citizens. Revamping the credit-guarantee scheme and provision of additional collateral-free guarantee credit will boost MSMEs’ balance sheets and reduce their cost of borrowing.

The budget boosts the ‘One District, One Product’ initiative by encouraging states to establish a ‘Unity Mall’ in their capitals to showcase their products. This move, along with efforts to integrate this initiative with digital markets, will boost the livelihood opportunities available to the artisans.

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The budget outlines the importance of startups. Allowing carry-forward of losses for longer will strengthen their books and enable focus on building the larger ecosystem.

Efforts towards financial support and training for traditional artisans and craftspeople will help women and other disadvantaged sections integrate with the MSME value chain while improving the quality, scale and reach of their products.

The finance minister’s call to entrepreneurs to “Make AI in India and Make AI work for India” provides the right impetus to the programme by proposing to set up three centres of excellence to promote the technology. The Rs 35,000-crore allocation for priority investments towards net zero objectives reflects the government’s seriousness in leading the fight against climate change. Duty exemptions to import of capital goods and machinery for manufacture of lithium-ion cells for batteries should make EVs more affordable and encourage their faster adoption. These policies will act as the tailwinds for India’s growth engine.

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Skilling and entrepreneurship are also key focuses of the budget.

The focus on a digital-led framework, startups, centres of excellence and encouragement to MSMEs via easier credit will help the ecommerce industry, given how closely they are integrated.

A tighter embrace of ecommerce can catapult India’s domestic manufacturing too, given the scale and access to technology and funds it provides to anyone onboarding it.

Ecommerce beautifully blends technology, finance, HR, supply chain and several other functions. Its potential can thus be harnessed by one and all to achieve the true economic potential of the world’s fifth largest economy.

Kalyan Krishnamurthy is CEO, Flipkart group.