Pre-Budget Expectations: Startup Leaders/ Founders/CEOs Share Insights on the Budget 2024

As India is eagerly waiting for the Interim Budget 2024, founders, CEOs and leaders from different sectors have shared their expectations and insights, giving their view of the country’s economic landscape. Here is a detailed look at what these experts have to say..

1. Sreedhar Bevara, A business Author, and Leadership expert

Sreedhar Bevara gained fame with his first book, 'Moment of Signal,' which became an international bestseller. The dramatic Bollywood-styled personal story of 'Roads to Boards' has captivated the media. His recent bestseller, 'The Roaring Lambs,' an award winner for Amazon's popular book of 2021, has sparked an international debate on empowering the weak to restore the law of nature. While the common man focuses on reading the headlines, conventional traders, manufacturers, entrepreneurs, and salaried class weigh the negatives and positives, with the media dissecting the chances of its impact on the upcoming elections. Sreedhar share his insight on the upcoming budget with a unique thought and vision "In addition to all other essentials, the Finance Minister should equally, if not more, focus on three major areas to empower the youth: 1. Skill development, 2. Train the trainer and 3. Strong and proactive policy on AI. The demographic dividend of India will not have the expected sustained impact if we don’t prepare them for an unpredictable future, especially the youth from the second and third-tier towns of India. This requires a far more methodical yet focused approach; otherwise, the youth will end up burning their age in conventional segments, thus not helping India achieve its ambition of becoming the third-largest economy by 2030." said Sreedhar.

2. Dr. Sujit Paul, Group CEO at Zota Healthcare Ltd.

Dr. Sujit Paul, the Group CEO - Zota Healthcare Ltd., leads the domestic and international businesses. He carries more than two & half decades of rich experience in setting up, scaling and operating for diverse plethora of brands. Dr. Sujit shares his expectations on the upcoming budget "To ensure affordable and world-class healthcare for the Indian masses, the Union Budget 2024 must prioritize key initiatives. Firstly, increasing healthcare budget allocation to 2.5% of GDP will bolster reforms and infrastructure nationwide. Secondly, a dedicated budget for upskilling healthcare workers, including pharmacists, is essential. Thirdly, implementing a PLI scheme for the healthcare sector will incentivize entities to enhance health infrastructure. Restructuring the healthcare GST framework addresses taxation challenges for providers. Additionally, integrating generic medicines into Ayushman Bharat yojana eliminates out-of-pocket expenses. Embracing telehealth in Ayushman Bharat yojana is crucial. The Budget's positive focus on pharmaceutical R&D promises innovation and breakthroughs, fostering an environment for an Atma Nirbhar Bharat. Success hinges on sustained funding, industry collaboration, and attracting diverse talent while maintaining safety standards, aligning with our goal of advancing a healthcare system tailored to the masses' needs." said Dr. Sujit.

3. Dr. Sailesh Lachu Hiranandani, the Ace investor, Fund Manager and Entrepreneur

Dr. Sailesh Lachu Hiranandani, CEO and Chairman of SRAM & MRAM group, shared his expectations from the budget 2024-25. SRAM & MRAM is a UK based international conglomerate with 8 global alliances, 10 companies spread across 35+ locations.The company's footprints are spread across multifarious services, business verticals, and operations with its core business being Fund Management, FOREX Management. The SRAM & MRAM Technologies and Projects India Pvt Limited, the Indian unit of UK-based SRAM & MRAM Group, has largely invested in semiconductor, Real Estate, Electric Vehicles, Solar Energy, Cargo and Logistics and Health sector in India. Dr. Hiranandani said, "As the Chairman of SRAM & MRAM Group, I have high hopes for the upcoming budget in 2024 for India. We anticipate a budget that focuses on driving economic growth, fostering innovation, and promoting sustainable development. Our expectations include measures to boost infrastructure development, enhance ease of doing business, and encourage investment in key sectors such as healthcare, renewable energy, and technology. We look forward to a budget that prioritizes inclusive growth, empowers small and medium enterprises, and creates a conducive environment for entrepreneurship. With the right policies and strategic allocation of resources, we believe India can unlock its true potential and emerge as a global economic powerhouse."

4. Dr. Sandeep Vasant, Registrar at Navrachana University, Vadodara, Gujarat

Dr. Sandeep Vasant holds a PhD in Computer Science and has over 19+ years of experience in teaching, research, academic and general administration in higher education. Prior to joining NUV, he was the Registrar at Anant National University, Ahmedabad, and was instrumental in setting up systems, processes and policies of the University for effective and solution-oriented administration. "In the fiscal year 2023-24, the Government allocated Rs 1,12,899 crore to the Ministry of Education, an increase of over 13% from 2022-23. Out of this, the Department of School Education and Literacy has been allocated Rs 68,805 crore, around 61% of the Ministry’s expenditure. This is an increase of 16.5% from 2022-23. Every penny spent today on schooling and developing educational infrastructure will provide higher education institutions with quality input and help towards attaining their objectives of producing skill-oriented productive manpower for the future. However, the spending on education sector as a percentage of GDP is still a modest 2.9%, it remains grossly inadequate to reach the government's own target of spending 6% of GDP on education set under NEP 2020. For the upcoming Budget 2024-25, we expect the government to spend more on the education sector, especially in developing infrastructure, IT support and teacher training" said Dr. Sandeep Vasant on the upcoming Budget.

5. Ashok Balasundaram, Co-Founder & Domain Expert at DaveAI.

Ashok Balasundaram is the co-founder and domain lead of DaveAl. With more than a decade of experience in the lifestyle retail industry, Ashok possesses strong domain expertise in retail management and currently manages the retail domain practice for his company. Ashok is a highly driven and passionate individual who approaches problem-solving with a detail-oriented and analytical mindset. He is a creative thinker with excellent communication and leadership skills, which have helped him build and lead successful teams. Ashok is a well-rounded leader who combines his technical and business expertise to build successful brands and businesses. He shares an insight on the upcoming budget which will shape the coming financial year of the country "This decade will see India transforming from being a back-office technology provider to a digital technology hub driving the digital operations of the world's largest corporations, with the potential to become a significant player in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). We expect increased fund allocation to incentivise research & skill development in this field. Startups will play a crucial role in enabling this shift, however the tax environment still remains prohibitive for global investors; we hope there are measures taken to facilitate institutional funding." said Ashok.

6. Ajiitabh Dutta, A business Coach, and A Growth Consultant

As the CEO of Simplicity Communications, Ajiitabh Dutta has made a significant impact in the world of marketing and business. He has coached and trained over 2000 entrepreneurs, powered over a hundred companies into exponential growth and conducted over 300 seminars. He shared his views and expectation from the upcoming Budget “A large part of our planned growth to a $5 trillion economy is going to be fuelled by MSME’s. As a consultant and mentor to many MSME’s, one of the critical missing links is cheap availability of short term finances. Credit growth especially for short term at competitive rates is going to be a huge boost to this segment. Also, a large number of start-ups are service oriented and have low asset base, making them unfit for traditional loan procedures. Moving to revenue based financing as compared to asset based financing would be handy to this entire ecosystem. I would love to see the budget announce product prototype centres across states. We yet are lacking in our ability to create world class products because of lack of common use R&D facilities." said Ajiitabh.