JOIN USBy Neha Rastogi
Being a Medtech startup in India we are very happy with the budget since it is not only startup-friendly and brings a lot of reforms under the Make in India and Digital India programmes to boost entrepreneurship but it also puts emphasis on home-grown medical devices. The move to increase tax imports of medical devices to put more impetus on domestic medical device manufacturers will not help fund the capacity building of the healthcare sector. Introduction of ESOP tax reforms will help attract bright talent to join more and more startups. The focus on AI and the proposal of building digital data centres will help increase R&D in AI, Big Data, iOT etc. We welcome the five-year tax holiday for startups. The move to set up an investment clearance cell for entrepreneurs to manage end to end activities including funding assistance through a portal is welcome.
The introduction of quasi-equity based debt funding will help a lot in terms of funding of startups and provide working capital to them which they always need the most.
The ministry has also proposed a scheme to encourage the manufacturing of mobile phones, semi-conductor packaging and electronic equipments in India which will boost more and more product and manufacturing startups in India. We now need to see now how the government will actually help home innovations like SanketLife by incorporating them in schemes like Ayushman Bharat towards the aim of healthcare for one and all.
(Neha Rastogi, Founder and COO-Agatsa, Innovator of world’s smallest and leadless ECG machine)