The Great Indian Budget – Panel Discussion

An Online Panel Discussion on “The Great Indian Budget” was jointly organized by CODE, SOM and HITSAA on 13 February 2022.

Panelists:

• Mr. Sankar S, Director, Region 8 at the American Association of Cost Engineering (AACE) India
• Mr. Salin Thapsi, Project Manager , Agriculture Dept., Govt. of Kerala
• Mr.Rohit Nahar, Regional Tax Manager, Kyndryl
• Mr. Varun Sridharan, Founder and Technical Director of GreenEnvironment Innovation & Marketing India (P) Ltd
• Mr.Sai Sundar, Joint President and Head of R&D in Lara Capital Management

Moderators:

• Dr.M.K.Badrinarayanan, Professor & Head, School of Management, HITS.
• Dr.Ami Garg Agarwal, Head, CODE, HITS.

Summary of the Panel Discussion:

Dr.Ami Agarwal delivered the opening remarks and welcomed the panel of experts for the discussion on the Union Budget 2022. In her address, she traced the history of Indian Budget and its significance. After the initial introduction of the panel of experts, the discussion was initiated by Dr.Badrinarayanan highlighting the findings of the Economic Survey 2021-22. Opening the forum for discussion, all the panelists were invited to provide their initial remarks about the budget from their perspective.

In the initial remarks, the panelists Mr.Sai Sundar and Mr.Rohit appreciated the vision set forth for the future; while Mr.Varun appreciated the focus given to the green initiatives, Mr.Sankar applauded the focus given to infrastructure development which shall fuel growth and create both direct and indirect job opportunities to the public; and Mr.Salin Tapasi praised the agri specific initiatives and overall development focus of the budget.

In the sector specific questions in the second round of discussions, Mr.Sai Sundar explained the macro economic scenario and clarified questions regarding the growth pattern and challenges. Mr.Rohit briefed about the proposed digital rupee, taxes and its impact on individuals and corporates, proposed taxes on digital assets, increasing debt burden, etc. While Mr.Sankar appreciated the vision of the budget in terms of infrastructure, he expressed his concerns on the possible implementation challenges. He emphasized the necessity to build employability skills in the students to capitalize the demographic dividend which is the biggest strength of the country.

Mr.Varun stated his concerns regarding the implementation challenges in the schemes like StartupIndia and Green sovereign bonds. While welcoming the initiatives announced in the budget, Mr.Varun sought to focus on proper implementation and accessibility to the schemes by the right people.Mr.Salin Thapasi, explained about the possibilities that agritech initiatives proposed in the budget is opening up and explained how the implementation is being planned by routing the funds through NABARD to reach the appropriate target group.

All the panel experts while expressing positive hopes of a positive recovery from the pandemic, advised to adopt cautious optimism since the success of all proposed initiatives lies in the implementation.

The session was well received by participants and concluded with a thank you note to all the speakers and participants for the active discussion.