Budget 2020: Mass scale digitalisation need of the hour

By Achin Bhattacharyya

What MSME’s and small businesss expect from union budget 2020

MSME’s have always been looked as the backbone of any economy and are a very important part of the entire ecosystem in terms of all aspects including job creation, acting as suppliers and promoting the spirit of enterpreneurship.

With more than 28 % contribution in GDP, 40% of exports and 45 % of manufacturing output, the importance of our 63.38 million MSME’s is self explanatory.

Whilst issues like increased access to credit, more budgetary allocation, creating a “Fund of Funds” (in the lines of suggestion given by former SEBI chairman U K Sinha headed comitee on MSME), Extension of interest subvention scheme etc will help the MSME’s in the country.

Expectations for Edtech sector
India may not be able to reap her rightfully due demographic dividend unless serious blue sky thinking and implementaion is done to boost the quality of education which will make our youth more employable and in turn not only contribute in achieving our economic ambitions but also to sustain it.
GST reduction on online courses 

In a country as huge as ours, on the ground resource crunch in terms of providing quality education to each and every child is a huge challenge. 

The only way to nurture this force of billion dreams is centralized content creation and efficient cloud based online distribution of the same, current 18 percent GST rate on online education needs to be seriously reconsidered keeping in mind the socio economic benefits of providing quality education to the masses and filling up the gap in terms of PTR (Pupil teacher ratio) and quality (as highlighted in PISA and ASER surveys in the past).

Large scale PPP project
It is high time that the infrastructures of state machinery and the innovation and entrepreneurial zeal of the private sector join hands to deliver the goods. Thus mass scale digitalization and on the ground implementation through smart classes is the need of the hour.

Age old chalk and talk pedagogy need to be replaced by engaging digital content and serious budgetary allocation for the same needs to be made.

Focus on Research

In order to create a knowledge economy, it is very important to focus on research.

As per WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) China made as many as 13.38  lac patent applications, with just 10% being made by non-resident Chinese, the USA made 6.05 Lac patent applications, while India made a mere 45K, of which non-resident Indians contributed over 70%.

Thus Budget 2020 should adequately provide for research allocations.

(Author is Founder and CEO of Notebook)