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Budget puts young entrepreneurs in focus

Young entrepreneurs need all the support they can especially so from the so government

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The finance minister Arun Jaitley called it a take-off moment for Indian economic growth as he delivered the budget on Saturday. But what interested me the most out of his speech was the focus he had in his to-do list for young people. Could India's demographic dividend finally start contributing to the country's growth targets? This year's budget outrightly supports youth, entrepreneurship and promotes young people to set up businesses and create jobs instead of just join the queue in the employment market. As a young digital entrepreneur myself, this comes as a big relief that processes are being streamlined, there is improvement planned in ease of paperwork and that the country will once again try and recreate a solid base of entrepreneurs in the new digital and tech age.

I am particularly interested in the Self Employment and talent Utilisation (Setu) scheme to be established with a corpus of Rs 1,000 crore. Incubating start-ups and create jobs is going to be the focus. That's a good concept, for one it suggests the need to focus and promote the idea of self-employment and support tech based start-ups. Will it help in converting job-seekers to job-creators? One is very hopeful to see this work out, and increasingly get more funds with every budget here on.

Young entrepreneurs need all the support they can especially so from the so government. The processes and systems in the country are more opaque than many other nations making it harder to operate and turning people hesitant to take the plunge into a start-up. The community also remains harrowed with the amount of paperwork that has to be maintained. By allowing for more digital signatures, soft copies and scanned documentation, the budget intends to lift off accounting nightmares of the logistical kind. Online excise and service tax registration in two working days should give start-ups and most young organisations engaged in getting approvals a much needed relief. Hopefully this will not have a fineprint which goes against the intent. Permission raj may go away and systems to be streamlined for people to set up businesses. A regulatory structure anticipated to be a simpler one to be brought in and hopefully encourage more entrepreneurship.

There were some other interesting checks that can help the youth get more purchasing power. Individuals can end up saving upto Rs 4.44 lakh every year due to various exemptions. That's great news for new entrants in the job market which puts more money in their hands to spend and lifts off tax burden in early career stages.

From the point of view of increasing skills, one expects a larger number of institutions like IITs and AIIMs being introduced which should open up opportunities for more youth to get trained in world class institutions. Task at hand for the government is to ensure that it doesn't promote quantity but also maintains quality of those institutions. The National Skill Mission to develop employability of youth, especially below 25 years of age should help alleviate disconnect between employment and employability. Given India's demographic putting young people at the centre of the budget is surely an important piece in the whole story. To note, and pay attention to both rural and urban youth is definitely a plus point from this year's budget. There are over-arching measures like making India into a manufacturing hub which promises to increase jobs as a bye-product. This has long been a point on the budget's to-do list but one hopes with growth focus over deficits, some of these objectives will come through.

This is a good tee off for the new FM but it will only be a combination of incremental changes, some new measures and an entire army put in place for real execution of all this intent that will eventually bring it some success. Here's wishing him a good round on the course.

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