Following the Finance Minister’s ongoing budget announcement, please find below the views of Gurjodhpal Singh, CEO, Tide (IN), a UK based fintech offering business banking solutions. The comment focuses on the government’s push to digital payments ecosystems and platforms and its implications.
The financial support for the digital payments ecosystem is a welcome move and further reaffirms the Government of India’s digital banking push. This push on digitisation will make way for more inclusion in the ecosystem. The focus on ‘Ease of doing business’ is a great step, as it will further promote entrepreneurship in the economy. Fintechs will continue to play the role that we have been playing for the past couple of years now, and these policies will further strengthen our role in the ecosystem. Moreover, the decision to interlink MSME portals and added corpus is the much-needed support at this hour.
Gurjodhpal Singh, CEO, Tide (IN).
With Union Budget 2022-23, a lot of expectations have been met. Healthcare and infrastructure were the main highlights of the budget 2022 and immense investment has been allocated for the expansion of roadways and logistics networks. Just like it was expected, the youth and startups were given keen importance in the budget as well. The ECLGS credit scheme guarantee cover has been expanded by Rs 50,000 crore, which will provide collateral-free loans to stressed-out MSMEs.
The budget also announced “one station one product” programme will facilitate local supply chains, this will be a huge improvement impact on small farmers and MSMEs. The budget also revealed about 100 PM Shakti Cargo terminals, which will develop in the next three years. Overall, this year’s budget will bring positive change for the MSMEs and other small industries.
Virendra Ranawat, Co-Founder, WoodenStreet.
The government believes that these sectors, with the help of the given scheme, have a potential to create more than 60 lakh new jobs and additional production of Rs 30 lakh crore during next five years, supporting the Indian Economy.
To aid the ailing sector, the honorable finance minister has announced an Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) extended up to March 2023 in the Budget.
This scheme guarantees cover extended by Rs 50,000 crore and now total up to Rs 5 lakh crore. MSMEs such as Udyam, e-shram, NCS & Aseem portals will be inter-linked, their scope will be widened.
Some relief but there was opportunity for more support for stressed tourism: FAITH
New Delhi, 1st Feb 2022: FAITH, the policy federation of all the national associations representing the complete tourism, travel and hospitality industry of India (ADTOI, ATOAI, FHRAI, HAI, IATO, ICPB, IHHA, ITTA, TAAI, TAFI) has said that more direct & immediate support could have been extended.
The extension of ECLGS expansion till 2023 with additional corpus of ₹ 50000 crores dedicated to hospitality & allied industries will help provide relief. Hopefully, the fine print will enable moratorium extension of all previous schemes and debt restructuring.
The announcements around PM Gati Shakti for multi modal transport, plan for seamless travel, plan for 400 new Vande Bharat, 5 planned DPR of river systems, 8 new ropeways under Parvart Mala, integrated connectivity between railways station, e- passports, PM North-East infrastructure, digital rupee, 1 lakh crore additional interest free support will have medium to long term growth implications for tourism growth in India.
The Union Budget provides some relief and medium to long term infrastructure measures to stressed tourism travel & hospitality industry, but there was an immediate opportunity for more direct intervention to support the highly stressed tourism travel and hospitality companies and their employees, said Nakul Anand , Chairman, FAITH
The additional support measures could have come through the following measures
– Direct wage support to employee of tourism travel and hospitality companies till tourism revival happens.
– Abolishment of TCS on outbound travel to prevent travel expenditure shifting from Indian travel companies to offshore travel companies.
-Infrastructure status to hotels irrespective of their location or capital size to support capex growth.
– E- Visa fees waiver for all tourist visas for 2022 and beyond to support inbound revival
– Export status for tourism export earnings to support inbound revival.
-Doubled, expenditure allocation for tourism ministry to enable intensive global reach out to support inbound revival.
-Domestic income tax travel credit for Indian citizens and Indian companies to support domestic retail and domestic mice pickup.
-Global bidding fund to enable bidding support to Indian mice companies to bring global mice events to India.
– Setup of GST review committee to re-examine the tourism, travel & hospitality GST pain points
The Government is committed to achieving its Housing For All vision. Thus, the announcement of ₹48,000 crores towards Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (PMAY) is reiteration towards that commitment. The allocation of these funds along with the commitment to complete the construction of 80 lakh homes under PMAY is a step forward. Further, better coordination between centre and states for smooth approval and uniform registration deeds will definitely boost the affordable housing sector.
In the first week of December 2021, the Union Cabinet approved the extension of its flagship “Housing for All” project under PMAY to March 2024. The commitment made today in the Union Budget will ensure that there is a positive impact on millions of Indians who wish to have homes to call their own.
Ravindra Sudhalkar CEO of Reliance Home Finance
Further to: Digital currency will also lead to a more efficient and cheaper currency management proposed to introduce digital rupee, using blockchain and other technologies to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India starting 2022 and 23. announcement. We have a quote from Harish Prasad, Head Of Banking, India, FIS (Fortune 500 firm and a leading provider of technology solutions for merchants, banks and capital market firms globally). Request you to please feature the same.
“The formal announcement of the Honble. Finance Minister on launch of India’s CBDC, the Digital Rupee, during 2022-23 is a much awaited and positive move.
This will trigger a wave of preparatory activity amongst retail payments providers and apps to offer payment mechanisms using the Digital Rupee, along the lines as been seen in China with major Digital payments players and apps offering Digital Yuan payments via their apps. There will likely be a similar model that will be seen in India to support adoption and use of the Digital Rupee, which is paramount for its success.
Another effect of this in the slightly longer term could be that the dependence on UPI for small value payments could potentially reduce with the Digital Rupee gaining traction in time. Given the level of growth being seen on UPI and the associated stress on technology infrastructures of issuers and banks, this may be a good thing after all.
What will be keenly awaited though is clarity on digital currency owner identification and any associated reporting requirements for payments apps, and whether the anonymity that physical currency enables is an attribute that will be supported in the Digital Rupee.”
Harish Prasad, Head Of Banking, India, FIS
The Union Budget 2022 announced today was a hit and miss for the education sector. While it has finally addressed and recognized the learning loss the pandemic has created, the need to develop the digital infrastructure of the country was not adequately focused in the budget. The economically disadvantaged students especially in rural areas have lost essential years of education and introduction of supplementary teachers was highly necessary. Supplementary education can help bridge the gap to a large extent. Increase of ‘One Class One TV Channel’ from 12 to 200 TV Channels to provide supplementary education in regional languages for class 1-12 is a welcome move but it will not be enough. It is important that we adapt our education system, pedagogies, and assessments according to the changing times. Upskilling is the need of the hour. Thus, the launch of Digital DESH e-portal for skilling, upskilling and reskilling will be key to adapting to the shifting dynamics of our present. Setting up of virtual labs and skilling e-labs will be valuable in developing critical thinking amongst students. Access to high quality e-content can help enhance the quality of education received by students. Making this accessible in regional languages additionally is a positive step towards a wholesome education. Development of a digital university to provide access to students for world-class quality education with ISTE Standards will be beneficial in the long run by making education available for a wider audience through the power of the internet. However, the much-needed increase in budget allotment for the education sector was missed. Further constructive measures towards digitization and resuming physical classes are needed.
DR MONA LISA BAL, CHAIRPERSON, KiiT INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
