With the scheme of modernizing the villages, and going digital will help in Skilling the youths in such villages, making them self-reliant and finding progressive careers for themselves while contributing to the household incomes as well said education sector industry leaders on the Prime Minister Narendra Modi budget 2019.
Vineet Chaturvedi, Co-founder, Edureka
Skilling' and ‘continuous learning' have become sufficiently important requirements in today's competitive professional landscape so much so that even the government has taken note of it and launched skill development initiatives. What could accelerate India's skill development story even further and provide fodder to corporate growth is a ‘skilling allowance' for all tax paying individuals. Such a rebate that rewards continuous learning will go a long way in creating an industry relevant workforce that can make India a skill hot spot.
Continuous learning is a necessity and not just an option anymore and by treating it on par with necessary allowances such as HRA, LTA, DA & others, GOI would be doing India a great service. After all, India's biggest strength is its human resource. Such an allowance will also be beneficial to IT, ITes industries which are subject to frequent skill churn and the ed-tech industry which has been working towards addressing this skilling need on ground.
Speaking specifically of the ed-tech industry, a reduction in GST would greatly help boost a culture of up-skilling among Indians and this is indeed the need of the hour for India to maintain an edge in technical skills. Education and up-skilling is no luxury and it should not be taxed as such. It's said that India lags behind even Sudan when it comes to its investments in education and healthcare mapped as a measurement of its commitment to economic growth, according to Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. It's time to change that.
Ipsaa Day Care
“Year 2016 & 2017, saw two significant changes in Maternity benefit act to increase participation of women in productive workforce thus increasing net direct contribution in the GDP. These two changes were, first to increase the maternity leave to 26 weeks paid leaves ,and second introduction of mandatory provision for daycares for organizations having more than 50 employees.
Both the amendments were lauded by the whole world as a progressive move of the Government to the well intended cause of bringing more and more women to workforce. However, from the business point of view ,both the moves made it more expensive for organizations to hire women and many are trying to avoid the compliance by avoiding hiring of women. Unfortunately the well intended amendments will result in effect that is opposite of intentions, if this is not taken care of.
We look forward to the government's steps on making it financially attractive for businesses to hire women, as well. The benefit can come in the form of cost share, as done in Developed Countries or some Tax Rebates that can bring in additional incentive for organizations hiring women other then the significant reduction of cost in rehiring and training new people and losing out on all the learning gained through experience, which many Corporates seem not accounting for, at present.
Divya Jain, CEO and Founder, Safeducate
The Government's push to the unorganized sector is a welcome step for the logistics vertical, which is characterized by a large number of unorganized players; and the pension scheme for the 4.2 crore workers in the numerous industries announced, in a way will help in streamlining the workforce and will address the issue of giving a decent life to them post their working age. With the scheme of modernizing the villages, and going digital will help in Skilling the youths in such villages, making them self-reliant and finding progressive careers for themselves while contributing to the household incomes as well.
In most of the villages, women are still not allowed to go out of their homes – Digital villages will help to reach those women and skill them. Even though through various schemes such as PM Mudra Yojana, Government have been trying to educate women and work towards the cause of women empowerment, but still a lot of women have been deprived of it – Digital villages will likely ensure such benefits reach them faster now.
Mahesh Makhija, Partner and Leader, Digital and Emerging Tech, EY
Artificial intelligence has the potential to deliver large economic and societal impact for India, especially across financial inclusion, healthcare, education, agriculture, and smart cities. National Centre on Artificial Intelligence along with the Centre-of-Excellence announced by finance minister must work on creating data ecosystems, developing talent pipeline, increasing R&D, strengthening data regulations and initiating the AI adoption in government programs to truly derive its benefits.
