Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2022 in Parliament today, which is the fourth budget of the Modi government 2.0. After the budget session of almost 2 hours, the Hon’ble Speaker adjourned the Lok Sabha till tomorrow.
Here are a few post-budget reactions from India Inc on the union budget 2022:
Ajay Sharma, Co-founder & COO of DESH Clinics:
“Truly a bold, forward-looking budget that lays the roadmap to steer the economy over the next decade and turn it into a truly digital ecosystem. It is heartening that the Finance Minister has recognized the importance of telecommunication as a medium of growth of Tele-Health in India. The Budget’s emphasis on rapid deployment of optical fibres in underserved geographies, earmarking 5% of Universal Service Obligation fund for affordable broadband and mobile services in rural and remote areas, and roll-out of National Digital Health Ecosystem is hugely welcome. This will enable an explosion of tele-health services across the country, connecting patients in rural areas with medical specialists in metros, solving the problem of access.”
Rajesh Goenka, Director, Sales & Marketing, RP Tech India:
“This is a very progressive budget focused on giving a boost to the infrastructural development and attracting global investments in form of FDIs. The government has been consistent in giving emphasis on the overall growth and development of industries rather than offering sector-specific incentives. The budget will create employment opportunities across the industry verticals and accelerate GDP growth. We hail the government for its strategic decisions and futuristic approach for self-reliant India”
Amit Relan, Co-Producer, Woot Factor Events:
The budget is focused on wealth creation in the long term, as well as adapting technology in forums that weren’t identified or are newly introduced even at rural levels. The newly announced emphasis on entrepreneurship and digital skilling will help us proliferate our nexus to make operations more connected and hassle-free. It will also lead to job employment opportunities and will create a ‘work-ready’ task force for speedy development. It will eliminate labour costs in labour-intensive sectors and will drastically bring down logistic costs. The RAMP programme can revitalize the MSME sector although we are not sure if 6,000 crores can suffice the ecosystem whole-meal. This is the encouraging story that emerges but we would have expected the entertainment and events industry to get some breathing room from the Govt which is lacking in this budget. While the Union Budget 2022 has shown some degree of consideration towards the MSMEs, it has missed the emphasis on immediate relief measures to the sectors that were decelerated because of the lockdown. Having said that, we believe that opportunities with this magnitude of investments in a developing India definitely has the potential to reorient future endeavours to our businesses and the increased focus on digitalization and broadband connectivity has the power to open us to an enormous untapped audience base.”
Dr Rakesh Gupta, Chairman, Sarvodaya Hospital, Sector 8, Faridabad:
“A bold budget that lays down a 25-year roadmap for India to become a truly digital economy. The announcement regarding the establishment of the National Digital Health Ecosystem is significant. It will make the health sector much more efficient and bring it into the modern age. Mental health has emerged as a silent epidemic in the last few years. Setting up a national tele mental health program to provide counselling and support to patients fulfils an urgent, long-felt need of an overlooked health challenge. Upgrading two lakh anganwadis with better infrastructure will have a positive effect on child health. There is no significant increase in budgetary allocation to health for FY 22-23, which is a bit disappointing considering how the Indian healthcare system struggled to meet the challenge of the epidemic. However, all in all, it is a very well thought out budget that will have a positive impact on the digital and health infrastructure of the country.”
Dr GSK Velu, Chairman & Managing Director, Trivitron Healthcare and Neuberg Diagnostics:
As expected, Budget 22-23 was a balanced effort to improve overall economic growth. Today, the healthcare sector in India is in a much stronger position than ever before. Measures introduced in Budget 2022-23 will further strengthen the healthcare sector while focusing on prevailing challenges.
The rollout of a National Digital Health Ecosystem will ensure that all segments of the society are able to access affordable and adequate healthcare in a seamless and efficient manner. Such an ecosystem can potentially make universal healthcare a reality for India.
Further, the fact that mental health counselling and care services found a place in the budget is a testament to how far we have come as a country. Inarguably, the Covid pandemic has adversely affected the mental health of the population at large. Thus, the launch of a National Tele Mental Health program can play a catalytic role in both normalising conversations around mental health as well as ensuring that people are able to seek support for mental health-related challenges.
Though there was not much for the medical devices industry directly in the Budget, the industry will benefit from the Government’s increased focus on healthcare. The National healthcare mission outlay has been kept at ~37,000 crores like the previous year and this is a bit disappointing, considering the fact our healthcare infrastructure needs a big boost in the coming years. The demand from all healthcare experts was to increase healthcare outlay in the current budget.
