Budget Reaction
Mr Amol Arora,Vice Chairman & Managing Director - Shemford Group of Futuristic Schools “For any country, the most significant returns are those garnered from investments made in its children. The next generation is going to enter a globalized world and will be competing for jobs not just against other students but also innovative technologies that are quickly replacing human jobs. In order to keep our children in the competition, we need to ramp up our Ed-Tech sector in the years to come. To that end, Budget 2019 should give certain tax breaks to EdTech startups to enable them to reach sustainable levels. The government should also grant financial incentives for organizations setting up educational institutes in rural and underserved areas. Currently, the private sector in education is viewed with distrust which is why concrete steps should be taken to show that public-private partnerships can be a winwin for all – delivering quality without fleecing the parents. The government has made significant strides in the direction of technology-enabled learning with the launch of SWAYAM, which offers free online courses by teachers from reputable institutions. Another notable achievement was giving more autonomy to institutions of higher education. The Prime Minister Research Fellows (PMRF) program has helped meritorious students tremendously. However, the promise to boost education expenditure to 6% of GDP is still a distant dream and quality of education in schools and colleges is still a worry. Most importantly, the implementation of policies & programs still remains a key challenge. We hope to see more from the government this year for this most vital sector of the economy.”
Divya Jain, CEO and Founder, Safeducate
"In the previous Budget 2018 Government took key steps in skilling and also increased the funds. In this Budget 2019, we expect that the Government should take key steps in raising the quality of skills to levels demanded by a potential employer or even required for a person to start one’s own business. The focus should be on integrating strategies to increase skilling outcomes and sustain economic growth. Current skill development initiatives should be integrated with nation-building mission programmes. As an Organization which provides skilling and get funded from the Government to execute the Skilling programme, we seek some tax benefits. Constructing the Skilling centre requires a lot of physical material which is being charged along with GST. We are not being able to reclaim the GST we had paid in the Inward supplies. Also, we have various certification and degree programmes in Logistics and Supply chain management where we are not being exempted from GST. Support in terms of medical allowance for students that are being trained in skilling programmes. As technology is changing, the Government needs to allocate more funds to improve the quality and develop excellence in Skilling centres. The government has promised and initiated schemes in Skilling such as PMKVY 2.0, DDUGKY, NAPS, Bharatmala and Sagarmala, PMKK etc. These schemes have helped us to reach the rural parts of India “The real India”. The government has been successful in implementing these schemes through strict monitoring and have been able to skill the rural
youths of India".
Beas Dev Ralhan, CEO and Founder, NextEducation India Pvt. Ltd.
"The budgetary allocation for education in 2018 stood at 3.5% of the entire budget, with a special focus on digitized classrooms, ICT-enabled learning and quality teacher training programmes. However, overall improvement of the education sector requires more prioritized attention and funding. With the General Budget around the corner, we have high hopes from the government and expect that a substantial amount would be set aside to the education sector so that we can lay a stronger foundation for newage learning strategies. The prerequisite for quality education becoming available to all is the free and easy access to quality e-learning resources. This can be initiated by the government through technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality and cloud computing. It is also important to ensure that internet access provided to rural areas is functional so that students from those parts can use it for effective selflearning. Training teachers on the latest pedagogies and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is the need of the hour as they are expected to employ innovative teach- ing methods and make use of digital tools in the classrooms. However, there is a dearth of 11 lakh adequately qualified teachers in the K–12 segments. Even though the government is trying to tackle the situation with initiatives such as Teacher Professional Development courses on the digital platform Diksha, this issue also needs prioritizing in the upcoming budget. We also hope that the government provides the right kind of infrastructural support for a system of education that is on a par with global standards, and help Indian students face the challenges of tomorrow".
Mr. Surajit Das, Co-Founder and CEO, Routematic:
“The startup trend in India is on a spectacular growth path, however despite Government bringing various regulations to promote the emerging business, entrepreneurs continue to face various challenges. This time start-ups, SMEs and entrepreneurs are expecting this budget to abolish angel tax for Government recognized start- ups. This will unleash its own potential and will help Start-ups to grow by leaps and bounds. The early stage start-ups will also be nurtured with more investments.” Quote on behalf of Mr. Sunil Gupta, MD and CEO, Avis India: “India is rapidly growing to be a large market for travel and tourism industry and is expecting international tourist arrivals to reach 30.5 million by 2028, therefore the government should focus more on improving the infrastructure of the country in terms of developing more roads and maintenance of tourist places for increasing the economy from tourism. The government needs to allocate much more towards infrastructure this year as last year government increased infra spend towards roads, air, rail and inland waterways by almost 22% to 5.97 lac crores, wherein we are expecting it to get an increase to 30% this year.”
Quote on behalf of Ms. Ratna Chadha, Chief Executive, TIRUN Travel Marketing India
The government has recognized the potential of cruising as an economic multiplier and is catching up with the world in terms of policies and infrastructure. Cruise Lines are now looking at the government to create a relatable tax regime, which is at par with the rest of the world.