Union Budget 2020: Expectation Are High Despite Slow Growth

To realise the dream of a USD 5 trillion economy, the growth of workforce would have to be trained into several new-age skills. In the upcoming budget, the government should consider a tax break for investment in skilling in the upcoming budget. This would encourage the workforce to reskill/upskill in newer job roles. In order to have a trained workforce, the student, employees and educational institutions have to start investing in skilling and the government should streamline and incentivise this investment.

To realise the dream of a USD 5 trillion economy, the growth of workforce would have to be trained into several new-age skills. In the upcoming budget, the government should consider a tax break for investment in skilling in the upcoming budget. This would encourage the workforce to reskill/upskill in newer job roles. In order to have a trained workforce, the student, employees and educational institutions have to start investing in skilling and the government should streamline and incentivise this investment.

• Educational institutions should be encouraged to have specific job/skill related programmes in their curriculum to promote industry readiness
• There should be a metric on the number of skill-related programs a student has undertaken with certification rather than being awarded just another degree
• The government can promote such initiatives in colleges/universities by providing an incentive to those institutions that offer UGC/AICTE approved certified programs in new-age skills

Over the years, the definition of ‘education’ has changed. Professional education (while working) is an important part of having an industry-ready workforce. To allow learners to build new-age skills, the government should consider expanding the definition of ‘education’ for the purpose of education loans. In addition to the recognition of colleges and courses by the competent of authority, education loan providers should also consider the earning potential of the education for which the loan is being sought. Today, the bank ignores the other important details such as the area of specializations and the possible sectors in which he/she might get a job, especially for someone in a low-paying job and wants a job in the high-paying sector. In the era of automation, there is an emerging consensus on upskilling courses being relevant to the industry. It is imperative that initiatives are taken to ease the process of taking loans for skilling programmes.

Both from a social and economic perspective, women should be encouraged to make a comeback to the workforce after breaks due to personal commitments. This is a critical need in certain sectors that have a high demand for a trained workforce. Expanding the government’s initiatives to educate the girl child, there should also be programmes to support women returning to the workforce and even updating their skills. Today, several MNCs are already doing this in an organised manner. We can increase the impact manifold by encouraging the entire corporate ecosystem to support this and help improve gender diversity in the workplace. Organisations investing in training and re-induction of women employees could be supported with commensurate benefits in tax exemption.

Manoj Agarwal, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Xoxoday

“The Indian economy requires some fundamental economic/fiscal/monetary initiatives which can help its growth in a tremendous way. The budget needs to bring a long term sustainable stimulus to the Indian economy. Some of the key expectations are below –

1. A stable policy structure that brings confidence and trust from stakeholders. Reduce volatile decision making which reduces investor confidence in the economy.
2. Boost for job creation through growth in key industries that have seen a downturn in the past few years like Automobiles, Telecom, Metals, BPO, etc.
3. Simple and friendly taxation environment which helps in consumer and industrial spends. An increased spend ll increase tax collection, rather than increasing tax per person or per product/service; govt should look at increasing the output itself which ll give more tax collections.
4. Startup India has been a good initiative. However, the government can bring more execution in the policy framework and relax it to cover slightly more mature start-ups. This ll help to build a lot of new companies and jobs because these companies ll emerge out of these mature start-ups. The government can bring policies for both early-stage and mature start-ups as both are important for the economy.
5. The economic mood in the country can improve with some forward-looking and consumer-friendly policies and initiatives. Instead of having policies that only benefit a few large companies, we need to have an inclusive mindset that can benefit micro-entrepreneurs, SMEs and shops.
6. Govt should encourage SME, shops and bootstrapped companies with tax-free policies etc so that they can compete against the heavily funded, powerful companies. This ll help in the distribution of wealth across segments instead of a winner takes all kinds of market. Fair pricing from online players should be governed to protect small entrepreneurs.”

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