Here are the key takeaways from FM Sitharaman’s sixth budget speech:
Boosting EV infra: Sitharaman said the government will expand and strengthen the e-vehicle ecosystem by supporting manufacturing and charging infrastructure. She added that higher adoption of e-buses for public transport networks will be encouraged through the payment security mechanism.
ET had reported on January 18, that the government could unveil an expanded third phase of the incentive scheme for electric vehicles in the interim budget and could set aside Rs 10,000-12,000 crore for the third installment of the Faster Adoption & Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) scheme.
The FM also said the government aims to support about a crore households under the rooftop solarisation scheme. The move is likely to give a boost to the electric vehicle charging ecosystem.“One crore households will be able to obtain up to 300 units of free electricity per month,” she said.
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R&D corpus: The FM said the government will establish a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore with a 50-year interest-free loan to aid the growth of India’s tech-savvy youth. The corpus will enable long-term financing or refinancing with long tenures at low or nil interest rates. This will encourage the private sector to scale up research and innovation in sunrise domains.Right from the Budget announcement last year, the government has been attempting to make hardware and electronic manufacturing in India a tempting proposition for global companies.
The government has revived the Indian Semiconductor Mission (ISM) to lure companies in peripheral industries for semiconductor manufacturing to set up shop in the country.
In 2023, the government expeditiously advanced its agenda through the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM).
The Narendra Modi government lowered customs duties on several components while increasing it on the finished product. The Budget last year also extended the concessional customs duty on several input parts by one more year to boost local manufacturing investment.
In May last year, the government notified the second phase of the PLI scheme for IT hardware with a budgetary outlay of Rs 17,000 crore, double that of the first phase.
Deep tech focus: A new scheme will be launched to strengthen deeptech for the defence sector, Sitharaman told the Parliament.
Last year, the government floated a draft national deeptech startup policy proposing changes across nine themes including access to funding, strengthening the intellectual property regime, sustaining deeptech startups, and enabling shared infrastructure and resource sharing.
Among the steps proposed was the setting up of a dedicated ‘deeptech capital guidance’ fund in which the government, private limited partners and foreign investors anchor certain commitments to a new fund or an existing fund in the form of a fund of fund (FoF) structure.
Tax benefits: The FM said that certain tax benefits to startups and investments made by sovereign wealth or pension funds, as tax exemption on certain income of some IFSC units, will be expiring on March 31, 2024, and to provide continuity in taxation, they have been extended to March 31, 2025.
