Pre-Budget Expectations by various industry leaders on the same.

1. Mr. Kalyan C Korimerla, MD & Co-Promoter, Etrio Automobiles
“To emerge stronger in realizing the fullest potential of the ongoing electric mobility revolution, it is imperative that as a nation India must make its manufacturing capacities stronger and fortify its localized supply chains. We at Etrio believe that the upcoming Union Budget should focus on introducing more schemes and policies to support innovation and capacity-building and to reward EV adoption.

To ensure that commercial or cargo EV adoption does not remain limited to the larger industry players, the Budget must incentivize small businesses and MSMEs to join the ICE to EV transition bandwagon as well. Furthermore, we would like to see Ease of Investing, Tax Rationalisation, and EV Skilling & Upskilling as the guiding principles for the sectoral announcements in Budget 2023.”

2. Ms. Shalu Jha, Co-founder & COO, PRandit Solutions:
For many years now, the soft power of today’s media outlets in showcasing our country’s socio-economic prowess as well their contribution to creating an impeccable reputation for today’s businesses and entrepreneurs has been ignored, or at best, utilized minimally or partially. And keeping the same in mind, the Government in this year’s Budget must work towards reversing the existing scenario and offer adequate sops/incentives and other enabling pathways to allow stakeholders to be able to leverage the optimal potential of new-age media and traditional media platforms. Since now is the right time and also high time we bring emerging technologies to the forefront vis-à-vis India’s efforts to uplift the media sector, I expect that media-tech is being provided a priority sector status in the Union Budget 2023, which in turn will lead to more and more media-tech innovations and startups to be able to flourish in India in the longer run. Lastly, we also hope to see some more stimulus packages and progressive policy moves focusing on the growth of India’s entrepreneurial community at large, and women entrepreneurs in particular.

3. Mr. Alok Katiyar, Co-Founder, WeClinic Homeopathy
“In order to achieve our goal of being a healthier and fitter nation, it is imperative and the need of the hour for India to move towards cutting-edge tech-enabled healthcare systems. And simultaneously, we as a nation must also focus dedicatedly on ensuring that healthcare services can reach every nook and corner of India. So, we at WeClinic Homeopathy feel that the upcoming Union Budget 2023 should prioritize introducing more innovative schemes and policies that would aid the long-term growth of telemedicine, AYUSH-based healthcare, and tech-enabled health systems.

As of date, a very small portion of the overall budget allotted for the healthcare sector has been designated for the AYUSH space in the previous years’ budgets; but in the upcoming Budget, we expect it to increase substantially. Furthermore, the Government should also focus on the opening of new hospitals and primary health centers for AYUSH treatments.”

4. Abhishek Jain, Fellow & Director, Powering Livelihoods, Council on Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW)
“In 2022, the government released a dedicated policy framework to promote Decentralised Renewable Energy applications for livelihoods. We hope that this significant example of pursuing the trifecta of jobs, growth, and sustainability, would find fiscal allocations in the upcoming budget to start realizing the vision of the policy framework.”

5. Dr. Akshay Singhal, CEO & Founder, Log9 Materials
To accelerate the penetration of EVs in the country, in the upcoming Union Budget 2023, the Government should include EVs in Priority Sector Lending (PSL) in order to make financing EVs cheaper and making them more affordable for the masses. Also, when it comes to incentives and financial enablers, the Government must take into consideration not just the volumes of production committed by manufacturers, but also the technological superiority of the vehicles and battery technologies in terms of safety, longevity, and fast-charging so as to ensure only the best reaches the final customers.

6. Mr. Ankit Alok Bagaria, Co-Founder, of Loopworm

We at Loopworm feel that the upcoming Union Budget 2023 must attempt to positively transform the agriculture and biotechnology sectors in India from a differentiated lens.

When it comes to the agriculture sector in India, we have seen in the previous years that most of the time the budgetary money allocated goes into various subsidies or loans. While loans and subsidies are important for agri-stakeholders, the grant money to scale up innovative ideas to PoC to pilots to commercialization is minimal. On the other hand, the Indian biotechnology space also faces a similar dilemma. In the previous year’s Budget, a significantly large part of the allocated amount that went to the Department of Biotechnology was spent on autonomous bodies and institutes focussing on biotech research; however, the support provided in terms of commercialization to start-ups or corporates remained limited.

Thus, in the upcoming Budget of 2023, we would be happy to see more focus and support given towards supporting the commercialization of biotechnology companies or start-ups. Given that biotech machinery and equipment is quite expensive in India today, financial support with loans and subsidies could help a lot in accelerating commercialization and scale-up. On the other hand, when it comes to agri-allied or agri-tech innovations and startups, we expect the Budget 2023 to make scale-up grants available as well, independent of whether or not any start-up has availed a smaller grant previously. If the start-up is ready, they should be helped with the money to scale up. Furthermore, the Budget should also be promoting precision agriculture and unconventional forms of agriculture such as Algae farming, insect farming, etc. with special allocations or incentives.