Union Budget 2023 is a bold vision for empowering the digitally marginalised: IAMAI

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has applauded Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for identifying in the Union Budget 2023 the correct digital initiatives in order to meet the stated objective of “a prosperous and inclusive India, in which the fruits of development reach all regions and citizens”.

In a statement issued, IAMAI said, “For the past few years, the Union Government has meticulously built up the Indian digital ecosystem, with a great investment of effort and resources to develop some unique digital assets such as Aadhar, UPI and Digi Locker. The good work continues in the form of the simplification of the KYC and unified filing process by strengthening facilities under Digi Locker and the announcement for the entity Digi Locker, which takes public digital goods to the next level.”

“As a result, India has emerged as a major digital centre and a global example. This has also been driven by the fast-rising internet user base and the emergence of a vibrant digital service market. However, in recent times there have been two critical concerns for the digital industry – first, the growth rate of digital penetration has slowed down; and secondly, there is a clearly identifiable digital divide in India with some sections getting marginalised as they are not onboarded digitally,” the Association added.

Some of the announcements such as Digital Public Infrastructure for Agriculture, National Digital Library for Children and Adolescents, Bharat Shared Repository of Inscriptions (Bharat SHRI), online training platform iGOT Karmayogi to provide continuous learning opportunities for lakhs of government employees to upgrade their skills and facilitate people-centric approach, the establishment of e-Courts, are programmes that will take the digital to the marginalised, IAMAI added. Similarly, creating one hundred labs for developing applications using 5G services is another visionary initiative that will help build the use cases for the future upon which digital service businesses can be built.

IAMAI concurred with the Government’s vision of equipping India’s new generation with digital skills so that they can utilise new technologies such as AI, IoT, VR and robotics to compete in global markets, thus enhancing India’s economy. IAMAI also welcomed the Government’s decision to set up three centres of excellence for Artificial Intelligence (AI) that will facilitate inter-disciplinary research and develop cutting-edge applications.

The Association appreciated the various futuristic initiatives such as promotion of EVs and Agritech, that not only promise a digital transformation of two of the largest sectors in India, but also help future-proof these sectors by building the launch pad for future entrepreneurial initiatives in these sectors.

“While the Budget seeks to build and leverage digital platforms, it is also cognizant of the needs of the indigenous digital industry. The association would like to congratulate the Finance Minister for allowing start-ups to extend the date of incorporation for income tax benefits from March 2023 to March 2024 and provide the benefit of carrying forward losses on change of shareholding of start-ups from seven years of incorporation to 10 years,” IAMAI said.

While recognising that mobile handset manufacturing has been in public discourse in recent times, IAMAI welcomed the budgetary relief in customs duty on the import of certain parts and inputs such as camera lenses and continuation of the concessional duty on lithium-ion cells for batteries for mobile phones for another year.

At the same time, IAMAI believed that there are certain persisting systemic challenges which impede the growth potentials of start-ups or even the ESDM sector in India. “While the Budget announcement marks the correct intention and fiscal incentives, other ministries need to complement the Finance Minister’s grand vision to help realise the vision shared by her,” the Association added.

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