The budget 2018 does not generate excitement to the extent that was anticipated. Though the extension of rural WiFi hotspots along with investments in telecom can enable rural economy and drive much better financial inclusion and drive technology enabled growth for the subset of our rural population, we need a better connect between strategy and execution especially in terms of digital India so that we are able to fully leverage the enhanced allocation, said D.D. Mishra, Research Director at Gartner.
“Looking at the overall picture, I feel that the approach is more fragmented at the moment and outcome and objectives of digital India needs to be better connected with the investments which are being made. Rather than restricting cryptocurrencies, they can be regulated to prevent any adverse impact and risks while exploring blockchain side by side and leverage opportunities which are available with new concepts and technologies that they bring to the table,” he added.
According to Souma Das, Managing Director, Teradata India, Finance Minister's emphasis on adoption of new age technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain and machine learning is a welcome step. “Leveraging these technologies will drive new insights from data to enable better policy implementation and fast-track reforms leading to improvement in citizen services and accelerating economic growth,” he said, adding that the thrust on digitization by doubling the expenditure for ‘Digital India' and setting up programs to channelize research efforts in new-age technologies is definitely a step in right direction.
On government decision to raise custom duty from 15 percent to 20 percent, Sudhin Mathur, Managing Director, Motorola Mobility India said, “The current move will provide stimulus to the government's ‘Make in India' initiative and further enhance the manufacturing sector leading to job creation. He said that his company's journey of Make in India began three years ago and they started manufacturing and assembling at our manufacturing unit through global contract manufacturing partner Flextronics. “We have doubled up our production capacity this financial year and will continue to scale up our manufacturing capacities to meet the growing customer demand,” he added.
