Budget Reactions from SMEs & Startups

Budget reactions continue to come as Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman introduced Union Budget 2019-20. This year's budget has credit related announcements which will eventually motivate the MSMEs.

Here are some reactions that came to SMEStreet.

Sameer Vakil - Cofounder & Chief Executive Officer, GlobalLinker

The first union budget of Modi 2.0 has set the tone for making India a $5 trillion economy. Much of the growth required to bridge the gap and in creating the required employment the nation needs will come from SME firms. Evidence of the importance of this segment was witnessed in the presentation by the Finance Minister and these are highly welcome. 

Access to credit is critical to the growth of SMEs and increase in credit through recapitalization of banks and ease of liquidity for NBFCs should bring much-needed relief. The interest subvention for SMEs will help through the allocation of RS 350 Crore. The creation of the Payments portal for SME firm outstandings is a welcome and progressive move, recognising that SMEs have borne the brunt of this for long. A number of new-age sectors such as electric vehicles and focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things, Big Data etc. Will help progressive entrepreneurs and start ups to create growth and value. Steps to resolve angel tax issue should come as a big relief to existing and budding entrepreneurs and to investors. Overall an encouraging set of measures in the Union Budget for SMEs.

Sunny Nandwani, Founder and Managing Partner, Acuver Consulting

The Union Budget 2019 pointed towards ease of doing business and scale up SMBs through ASPIRE (an initiative to develop skilled entrepreneurs in agro rural industries) and SFURTI (an initiative to enable artisans to join the economic value chain). The government has also given a massive push to infrastructure through all forms of physical connectivity via PMGSY, Industrial corridors, Dedicated freight corridors, etc, which will facilitate last-mile fulfilment of the retail industry.

With FM, Nirmala Sitharaman, aspiring to lead India to a 5 trillion USD economy, looking forward to policies that will increase purchasing powers of the citizen. Retailers, in turn will require to go digital to meet this increasing demand in consumption. IT organization will help the retailers with the digitization process.

This budget also allocates Rs.400 crore towards higher-education institutions, which will help improve the skills of our youth in areas such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Robotics. This will further result in a reduction in Academy-industry fitment.

Siddarth Bharwani, VP – Brand & Marketing, JETKING

The Union Budget 2019 has been an education-friendly one with great emphasis laid on the reforming education policies and unlocking India’s potential to become an important educational hub in the world. The details of the new education policy announced by FM Nirmala Sitharaman will be one of the most awaited reforms from the budget announced today. With an emphasis on the growth of the research and innovation in India, the government has announced an allocation of INR 400 crores towards strengthening the higher education system in India. This kind of support the government towards the education sector is truly heartening to see and is in line with India’s goal towards the 5 trillion economies. Additionally, the focus has been laid on new age skills such as AI, IoT, Big Data and Robotics which are key demands in both national and international job markets. While the stepping stones to the importance of skill development in such fields have been laid, we are still awaiting further clarification on how this advanced skill development is to be achieved. 

Shubika Bilkha, Partner, EdpowerU

“Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam in her Budget 2019 speech re-emphasized the Government’s focus of driving India to become a 5 trillion economy in 5 years. She believed that the spirit of Asha (hope), Vishwas (trust) and Akansha (aspiration) fills the Country today, served as an encouragement to drive this proposed agenda ahead. Revisiting and sensitizing the youth to Gandhian values was discussed in this Budget, and it will be interesting to see the dissemination of these values to today’s youth in the context of the rapidly changing world that we live in. Massive and much-needed reforms to the education policy for higher education have been suggested to ensure greater autonomy, a focus on new age skill sets and outcome-based learning.

In addition to building world ranked institutes, it is incumbent on the Government to ensure a required shift in the mindset towards education to move away from mere technical skillsets and gaining marks or grades towards more practically oriented workplace and employability focused skills (that constitute ~60% of workplace success). It is equally relevant to align these identified skillsets with the requirements of industry and global future skills research, to position Indian graduates at an advantage.”