View: The intent of Budget 2023 is to build capabilities & competitiveness

India is the bright star on the world stage, declared the finance minister while presenting this year’s budget. The initiatives collectively highlight how ‘amrit manthan’ will propel Bharat’s march towards the development of its people’s capability and the competitiveness of its industry, while showcasing India as a globally responsible nation. The intent of each initiative proposed was earnest, and the approach imaginative. If executed well, these will help enhance the trust index of India’s competitive agility.

Over the past few years, physical and digital infrastructure has been built and upgraded through successive interventions. The resulting ease of living and doing business has improved the quality of life for millions of citizens.

This budget, by focusing on replicating the impact of successful interventions, seeks to cover important areas, such as agriculture, MSMEs, and introduces us to an inclusive, cooperative way of doing business.

Take the rural livelihood scheme, a great example which aims to enable 81 lakh women self-help groups to evolve and upscale into professionally managed organisations serving large consumer markets, very much like startups growing into meaningful unicorns.
The purposeful emphasis on public goods shone through in the plans such as those for a digital public infrastructure for agriculture: open source, open standard, and inter-operable. Here again, mirroring the earlier success in India Stack. Complementing these digital interventions will be a substantial capital investment outlay, which has increased three-fold since 2019-20, as well as 100 critical transport infrastructure projects, for first- and last-mile connectivity.

Decarbonisation and economic development are not mutually exclusive and can drive growth in new areas that emerge. The budget’s focus on the green agenda across sectors, whether in the form of energy or transport transition demonstrates the acceptance of our role and responsibility as global citizens. It also serves as acknowledgement that the government is uniquely positioned to mobilise and coordinate efforts in India’s path towards net-zero by 2070, while encouraging business to step up and share the responsibility.

This budget has taken substantial steps towards a green growth-based economy, emphasising how actively we are moving towards de-carbonisation and circularising. Initiatives underline the ubiquity of the green economy and green diplomacy. These efforts help in reducing carbon intensity of the economy and will provide related, large-scale job opportunities.In conclusion, the government’s efforts since 2014 have ensured all citizens a better quality of living and a life of dignity. Per-capita income has more than doubled to Rs 1.97 lakh. The formalisation of the economy has progressed significantly, as reflected in the EPFO membership more than doubling to 27 crore, and 7,400 crore digital payments of Rs 126 lakh crore through UPI in 2022. The focus on building capacity, capability, and resultant growth is also expected to give a fillip to the growth of MSMEs.

No doubt, these are grand challenges on which we need to focus. But the collective outcome will be Amrit Kaal.