Union Budget 2022-23: What Industry Expects From This Budget

With the Union Budget 2022 approaching, various sectors such as Startup,Fintech, Education,and Hospitality are hoping that FM Nirmala Sitharaman will announce steps to help alleviate the pandemic uncertainties, especially this year with the Omicron variation of COVID19 causing the country’s third wave of the pandemic. Here are some experts sharing pre-budget views from their respective industries.

What the Fintech sector wants from Budget 2022 by Mr.Nitin Mathur,CEO, Tavaga Advisory Services 

In the last two years, the fintech sector, which has always been a dynamic space, has seen a rapid influx of developments. First, we saw a huge increase in e-commerce and a shift toward contactless payments as a result of the pandemic.The industry clearly expects a level playing field for all the FinTech players.Regulations, especially around those set of companies who tend to act and collect the personal data of their customers without any appropriate license should be asked to cease their operations or follow the rules laid out by the respective regulating authority post coming under the ambit of a proper license.Regulation around cryptocurrencies is much needed, as soon as possible. There is a lot of confusion and uncertainty around the tax to be paid from the profits made out of trading in cryptocurrencies. While budget would not be the appropriate place for the FM to regulate cryptocurrencies or the attached Blockchain technology, clarity is expected on the taxation front of it.There should be more focus on educating the commoners about the Digital Currency, India intends to bring in the market. Tax concessions and incentives around digital payments will ensure further boost in tax revenue collected by the government.

Expectations from the food and hospitality industry by Mohammed Bhol, Co-Founder Charcoal Eats 

The epidemic has had an adverse impact on India’s food and beverage business, forcing it to consolidate operations, refocus efforts, and reconsider survival methods. As the hospitality industry struggles to recover, we expect the Union Budget to place a specific emphasis on offering stimulus packages that will help the industry recover quickly.This year’s budget would be quite intriguing to observe, as the previous year was full of challenges due to COVID-19. Despite the massive adoption of technology, we still have a long way to go in terms of efficiency to help the bottom of the pyramid grow.Practical tax rebates measures will also provide a conducive environment for hospitality businesses to restart operations and recover faster. In addition, restoring an input tax credit for the food and beverage sector will encourage investment and alleviate long-term budget issues.Furthermore, given that the nationwide contagion has caused severe job losses across the country, further restricting consumers’ discretionary spending, it is imperative that power tariff slabs for F&B outlets be synced with rates applicable to industries, at least for the time being.

We are optimistic that the Union Budget 2022 will resurrect India’s hospitality and food and beverage scene and provide relief measures to rebuild the sector.”

What Tech industry is expecting from this Budget by Deepak Syal Director and Co-founder GreyB 

The Union budget last year had six pillars, and ‘Innovation and R&D’ was one of the pillars. In the budget, the National Research Foundation (NRF) was given a five-year outlay of Rs 50,000 crore to boost innovation in the country.As the world is changing, the increase in automation and technology will affect every sector, whether it is ITES, FMCG, Banking, Automobile, Telecom, or Retail. If we have to be ready for the future, as a country, we have to start working on this shift now. The country should aim to become the knowledge capital of the world in the next 20 years. This implies bringing innovation to the center of future growth. It was good to start this through NRF, but it may take a while to bring the change centrally via one organization. Therefore, the government should aim to push this initiative further in a decentralized way. For example, tax incentives are a good way to encourage firms of all sizes to innovate and create intellectual property. India has so much brainpower that if the government can allocate 1% of the budget to this Innovation pillar, we have high chances of achieving this goal of becoming knowledge capital in 20 years. This will also enable our domestic players to compete at a global level and generate 10x export revenue for the country.

Pre-budget expectation for education sector By Alok Kumar, Founder & CEO, StockDaddy 

EdTech platforms have greatly reduced the learning gap in the country and they can bring magical results in connecting the rural populace of the country with virtual classrooms. Undoubtedly, the government has limited resources to develop quality educational infrastructure in remote areas. But, with the advent of digital tools and hybrid learning models, we can overcome the majority of material challenges. Of course, the support of private players would be quite imperative in this regard and working on PPP can certainly ensure a win-win equation. In this realm, the honourable Finance Minister should provide some quality incentives to the burgeoning EdTech sector of the country. The foremost change that the industry expects is a reduction in the GST from 18% to 5%. It will help them to focus on developing more innovative solutions for the greater good of the whole society.