JOIN USThe sapta swaras of accelerating our economic growth
The sapta swaras are the seven octave musical notes in Indian classical music, forming the complete dimension of a musical pitch. The Government of India’s Budget 2023 is a seven-point blueprint to accelerate economic growth: inclusive development, reaching the last mile, infrastructure and investment, unleashing the potential, green growth, youth power, and the finance sector.
GAME’s (Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship) hypothesis is also aligned to the same sapta swaras. We believe that India needs job creation at scale, especially for our youth and mass entrepreneurship is the solution to drive wealth, wages, and employment generation at scale.
In this regard, support for the MSMEs has been a continuous budget theme over the last few years, specifically in the harshness of the pandemic. Budget 2023 underlines the same conscious effort to empower the MSME sector through the revamped credit guarantee scheme and infusion of Rs 9,000 crore corpus, as well as offering collateral free loans of Rs 2 lakh-crore and 1 percent reduction in cost of credit.
We really appreciate the changes in compliance and relaxation in a few regulatory provisions such as recognition of PAN as a single business identifier for all digital systems, reduction of 39,000 compliances and decriminalisation of 3,400 legal provisions. This augurs well for India’s MSMEs, and will ensure that setting up, running, and growing an enterprise becomes less tedious.
The Budget has shown consideration to the MSMEs offering them some samadhaan by assuring return of 95 percent of forfeited amount for contract failure during COVID-19. No MSME wants to fight it out in court for a long time, hence bringing back the Vivad Se Vishvas Scheme is a good move that will help with voluntary settlement of contractual disputes of government and government entities.
What is missing is a comprehensive National Entrepreneurship Mission (NEM). There are enough schemes, both at the Centre and state level, to help entrepreneurs, but they are all lying in different departments and different ministries. Working with the overlapping nature and rationalisation of these schemes is critical. The way it all translates at the ground level, ensuring the schemes reach the MSMEs, and bringing it all together is the real challenge. This is where NEM will come into play — helping to amplify existing schemes, increasing access to finance, and strengthening the local entrepreneurial ecosystems.
On the youth employment front, the National Apprenticeship Scheme, the Amrit Peedhi, and the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana will facilitate access to entrepreneurial schemes and skilling platforms. Technology will be a key driver of our economy and exposing our youth to more futuristic technologies will enable them to become more innovative.
Setting up unity mall in state capitals for the promotion of 'one district, one product' and developing tourist destinations as whole packages will give an impetus to tourism, a sector that is still reeling from the impact of COVID-19. It will also open a plethora of possibilities and entrepreneurial opportunities, especially for the youth.
The Budget has also touched on women entrepreneurship by focusing on traditional artisans and craftsmen, offering solutions to help them improve the quality, scale, and reach of their products, integrating them with the MSME value chain, and creating the aspiration for a nation of women-led enterprises becoming unicorns.
Lastly, Climate Change is real, and India has already set the target for net-zero emission. To ensure a faster transition to a green economy, this Budget has provided a roadmap to bring youth at the intersection of entrepreneurship and green jobs and infrastructure.
Overall, Budget 2023 has hit all the right notes with regard to building a robust and rich entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Madan Padaki is co-founder, Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship, Founder & CEO, 1Bridge, and president, TiE Bangalore.
(Disclaimer: The views expressed are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)