A corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore to scale up research and innovation in sunrise domains will be a “game-changer and a force multiplier”, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, told NDTV, hours after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said the big announcement in the interim budget.
Calling it a golden era for the country's tech-savvy youth, Ms Sitharaman said the corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore will be built with interest-free loans of 50 years to encourage the private sector to scale up research and innovation .
“It's a brilliant way to quantify whether you want to call it this vision or realize that the Prime Minister has it as the country continues to bring more and more of these opportunities to our economy. That they are available to our youth, to our start-ups, to our entrepreneurs, to our larger companies… That there are sufficient sources of credit and capital available for them to innovate and conduct research,” said Mr. Chandrasekhar.
The minister said that now is the time for the country to actively become the producer of the technologies of the future with innovative platforms, devices and products of the future.
“One lakh crore given as low-cost financing by the government will in turn provide additional resources and make this capital available to this ecosystem of companies, start-ups and individuals who want to innovate and do research. It is absolutely a game changer and a force multiplier in many ways to the ambition that we have to create a trillion dollar digital economy and a five trillion dollar economy,” the minister added.
India's economy is expected to grow by nearly 7 percent in the financial year 2024-25, which starts in April, the finance ministry said in an assessment report.
The next wave of start-ups is what the country is preparing for, what the Prime Minister is preparing for, the minister said, adding that supportive policies are being developed to ensure that there is more and more of this energy that will drive this ambition . India is becoming a 'viksit Bharat'.
“We are working to make India a 'Viksit Bharat' by 2047. To achieve that goal, we need to enhance people's capabilities and empower them,” said Nirmala Sitharaman while presenting the budget.