Focus on digitisation to help startups says Andhra University DIPR Chair Professor H Purushotham

Visakhapatnam: Several proposals made in the Union Budget proposals for FY23 will help startups to a large extent and give a fillip to promotion of innovation culture, said Andhra University DIPR Chair Professor H Purushotham.

In a chat with Bizz Buzz, he said on Thursday that the overall budget is progressive and growth oriented with focus on digitisation to leverage the strengths in ICT.

Prof Purushotham, former Chairman and Managing Director of National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) said the budget has given some push to the demand side of the innovation such as extending the tax holiday for startups by one more year, the surcharge on long-term capital gains on equity investments reduced to 15% from 37% and extension of concessional regime for new manufacturing companies upto March 31, 2024. Skill development comes to focus with establishment of many virtual and simulation labs and opening up of the defence sector for startups and allocating 25% of total defence R&D budget for private public partnerships.

He welcomed the policy on energy storage and swapping batteries for EVs, promoting high efficiency PV solar technology ,permitting use of drones in agriculture to promote innovation are welcome and radical steps.

The professor, an expert on patent rights, said the budget to the Ministry of Science & Technology has been pegged at Rs14,217 crore, reduced by 3.9 per cent compared to last year

He said "to make India self-reliant we need to invest more in innovation, science and technology. Over the last two decades the spending on R&D is stagnant at about 0.7 per cent of GDP though several recommendations were made to take the R&D investment to 2 per cent of GDP."

"The government could have considered some sops for the private sector to invest more in R&D," he opined.