Opinion: How Budget 2022 Is Digitising India's Growth Opportunities
NDTV
Union Budget 2022 has achieved a fine balance between macro-growth and all-inclusive welfare through the establishment of a digital economy and a booming FinTech ecosystem.
Union Budget 2022 has achieved a fine balance between macro-growth and all-inclusive welfare through the establishment of a digital economy and a booming FinTech ecosystem. It includes several promising initiatives that will help aspiring entrepreneurs, FinTechs and the overall startup ecosystem to succeed.
Firstly, a vibrant digital economy necessitates robust digital infrastructure. The Finance Minister proposed data centres and Energy Storage Systems including dense charging infrastructure and grid-scale battery systems to be included in the harmonized list of infrastructure. This will help to make credit more readily available for digital infrastructure and clean energy storage.
The budget has also given a huge fillip to the digital payments industry. The decision to maintain financial support for the digital payment ecosystem from earlier years will encourage more people to use them. The government has also recognised that digital payments are user-friendly and cost-effective. This serves as a huge motivation. Making digital banking accessible to far and wide through the establishment of 75 digital banking facilities across 75 districts is fantastic and sums up the government's futuristic outlook. It will help in adoption and augment financial inclusion. This also calls for increased collaboration between scheduled Banks and FinTechs. Connecting post offices to the banking system might be a game changer, resulting in a slew of new applications.
The government's long term vision and emphasis on futuristic technology is further reiterated with the proposed launch of the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) or Digital Rupee by RBI, which will begin in FY 2022-2023. This will make currency management more efficient and cost-effective, as well as provide a wider range of opportunities. However, the industry still awaits further clarity on CBDC.
