As the union budget is scheduled to be announced on February 1, businessmen and entrepreneurs share their expectations. Nirmala Sitharaman will launch the annual budget 2021. The finance minister had recently announced that budget documents will be available on a specially designed app, Union Budget 2021.
Dr. Ranjit Nair (PhD AI), CEO and Founder of Germin8 shared detailed suggestions:
“One of the biggest areas where countries are vying for dominance is Artificial Intelligence, which is expected to have a huge impact not only in commerce but also in areas like health, national security, cybersecurity, food security, education, and global warming. Unfortunately, countries like USA and China are leaving India behind in terms of AI research, AI entrepreneurship and government investment in AI.The following are some things that the government could do:
1. AI Grand Challenges: The government can announce AI grand challenges that are open to teams from academia and industry that involve solves an important problem for India. The government’s role in this would be to give a crisp problem definition, provide access to the data and of course provide a good cash prize. Such AI grand challenges will result in important problems getting solved, new startups and jobs, and capture the nation’s imagination and give an impetus to the field of AI.
2. Make it easier to access capital: One of the biggest challenges that startups face is early-stage funding. The government could announce a fund on the likes of Singapore’s Temasek that will invest only in early-stage Indian AI startups. Also, the government could announce lower long term capital gain’s tax for investing in AI-based startups. This will encourage more angel investment into AI start-ups.
3. Improve AI talent in the country: While there are a lot of engineers being produced in India, we still lag behind other countries in terms of the number of AI PhDs and AI research. The government should make more research grants available for AI research and should also offer incentives to institutes that invest in AI training.
4. Ease of doing Business: Government focus should be on bringing policies that encourage AI companies. There should be less red tape, more freedom from the government departments so that entrepreneurs can be focused on building solutions without unnecessary distractions.”
Arun Chittilappilly, Managing Director of theme park Wonderla Holidays also shared his inputs and said, “COVID-19 has had a massive impact on the Amusement Parks business with no revenue for more than eight months at a stretch. Considering the initial investments and gestation period the GST for the Amusement parks should be reduced to 12%, from the existing 18%. Amusement parks cater to all customer segments and the share from B2B customers is less compared to walk-ins. It would be good to exempt Amusement Parks from e-invoicing and treat us at par with the cinema halls. Amusement Parks should also be exempted from any state-level tax burden like local body tax (LBT). In addition to GST a few states also levy an additional 10% LBT. This will have an overall impact on the viability of the Amusement Park business. I look forward to some of these being addressed in the upcoming budget”.
Mr Jignesh Mehta, Founder & Managing Director, Divine Solitaires said in a statement, “The gems & jewellery industry has been largely neglected in the last few budgets. As with every sector, development is extremely important in the diamond industry. This industry has still not seen Vikas (development) in the way it is supposed to. In fact, it is the least digitalised sector and the upcoming budget should look into this. Instead of taking the focus away from entrepreneurs, the industry should be attracting fresh talent and rewarding the deserving ones. People trying to bring about innovation and positive change need to be recognised and encouraged.”
He added, “Despite being a traditional business in India, where more than 90 per cent of the world’s diamond cutting and polishing takes place, the diamond industry has still not received enough attention from the government. We hope that the budget has more to offer to this industry. We need more focus on enhancing customer experience and fulfilment, improving the standards and bringing transparency by taking effective steps to organise this industry.”