Budget 2021: Turbocharging India’s economy

Agriculture is the backbone of India’s economy. Amid COVID-19, while companies across sectors suffered, the agriculture sector somehow defied the overall economic slowdown this fiscal year.

Sunday January 31, 2021 , 4 min Read

It’s Budget time, and entrepreneurs across sectors are expecting the government to deliver reforms to help them rise from the disruption of COVID-19.

Agriculture is the backbone of India’s economy. Amid COVID-19, while companies across sectors suffered, the agriculture sector somehow defied the overall economic slowdown this fiscal year.

However, agritech entrepreneurs say that the government must enhance the use of newer technologies such as artificial intelligence to improve yields and farmers’ incomes.

Here are some of the top recommendations from the sector:

Set up and strengthen FPOs to make it easier for private players to reach growers.
Connect FPOs in a digitised way so that they can benefit from new technologies offered by agritech startups.
Expand the scope of the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund to increase warehousing facilities and strengthen the supply chain.
Build on the Krishi Udaan logistics scheme unveiled last year to help farmers transport their produce by air.

On the other hand, fintech entrepreneurs say that India’s pandemic-hit economy needs big-bang reforms and not a mere tinkering of the tax structure to navigate its way out of its first recession in four decades.

Key recommendations from fintech sector:

Another fiscal stimulus and ramp up spending to boost economic growth.
Specific measures to boost consumption instead of just tinkering with tax rates.
Significantly increase government spending on infrastructure.
Improve liquidity to the industry; cut rates and reserve ratios for lenders.

For YourStory's complete multimedia coverage of Budget 2021, visit YourStory's Budget 2021 page.

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The Indian government must simplify the tax regime, ease compliance burden for edtech companies, and encourage new-age lenders to capitalise on the online learning opportunities that have arisen after the COVID-19 pandemic, education-focused entrepreneurs and financiers said. The government should also look at offering incentives to students, teachers and employers to accelerate the growth of online learning, the entrepreneurs and financiers said at a panel discussion with YourStory highlighting their expectations from Budget 2021.

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