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Interim Budget: FM announces ₹1 trillion corpus for research in technology
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman also said that a new scheme will be announced to strengthen deep tech technologies for defence purposes and atma nirbharta
Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, presenting the Interim Budget 2024 in Parliament on Thursday, announced a ₹1 lakh crore [ ₹1 trillion] corpus to help finance research in technology. She also said that a new scheme will be announced “to strengthen deep tech technologies for defence purposes and atma nirbharta”.
Calling innovation the “foundation of development”, Sitharaman said, “A corpus of ₹1 lakh crore will be established with 50-year interest free loan provided. The corpus will provide long-term financing or re-financing with long tenors and low or nil interest rates. This will encourage the private sector to scale up research and innovation significantly in sunrise domains.”
Sitharaman recalled former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri’s famous saying “Jai jawan, jai kisan”, which former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee expanded to “Jai jawan, jai kisan, jai vigyaan” and Prime Minister Narendra Modi changed to “Jai Jawan, jai kisan, jai vigyaan, jai anusandhan [research]”.
During her speech, Sitharaman hailed digital public infrastructure. She mentioned that through direct benefit transfer to PM Jan Dhan accounts, the government has disbursed ₹34 lakh crore to beneficiaries and saved the government ₹2.75 lakh crore by plugging leakages.
Sitharaman said that the Skill India Mission had trained 14 million youth and reskilled and upskilled another 5.4 million youth.
Sitharaman mentioned that 1,361 mandis had been integrated in the electronic National Agriculture Market (eNAM) which had provided services to 18 million farmers. eNAM has seen a trading volume of ₹3 lakh crore, she said.
