budget for startup: Budget 2023: Key takeaways for tech, startups from Nirmala Sitharaman’s speech

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman during her Budget speech made several announcements related to the tech and startup sector, including relief on customs duty on import of certain parts, expansion of the scope of Digilocker, AI centers, fund for agritech startups, among others.

The FM said the government’s vision for the ‘Amrit Kaal’ includes a technology-driven and knowledge-based economy, with strong public finances and a robust financial sector.

ETtech looks at the key Budget 2023 announcements for the technology and startup sectors:

■ For business establishments required to have a Permanent Account Number, the PAN will be used as a common identifier for all Digital Systems of specified government agencies
■ One-stop solution for reconciliation and updating identity maintained by various agencies to be established using Digilocker and Aadhaar as foundational identity

■ The government is expanding the scope of Digilocker to allow more documents to be made available for individuals, micro-small and medium enterprises and charitable organisations.

■ The government has proposed to extend the date of incorporation of startups by a year from March 31, 2023 to March 31, 2024 for income tax benefits ■ The finance minister announced an agriculture accelerator fund to promote agriculture among youth. She said this fund would be set up to encourage agritech startups by young entrepreneurs

■ Digital public infrastructure to be developed for the agriculture sector

■ 100 labs for developing applications to use 5G services to be set up in engineering institutions. Labs will cover smart classrooms, precision farming, and healthcare applications.

■ Three centres of excellence for artificial intelligence in top educational institutions

■ Phase 3 of e-courts projects to be launched with an outlay of Rs 7,000 crore

■ Sitharaman also announced the setting up of a national digital library for children and adolescents for facilitating availability of quality books across geographies, languages and genres to address the learning loss incurred during the pandemic years. States to be encouraged to set up physical libraries at panchayat and ward levels, and provide infrastructure for accessing the library resources

■ The FM announced a cut in customs duty on the import of certain inputs for mobile phone manufacturing. She also announced that customs duty on parts of open cells of TV panels would be cut to 2.5%, while customs duty on kitchen electric chimney has been increased to 15% from 7.5%

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