The Union Budget 2022-23 ("Budget") was presented by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1, 2022, and undoubtedly has the thread of a digital, and an increasingly more digitised, India running through several of its proposals, which have been created with an emphasis on inclusion and the building a robust economy by leveraging digitisation in several spheres.
The first such sphere of importance is the proposed reforms in the education sector. The disruptions caused to the formal schooling of children due to the COVID-19 pandemic has deepened the digital divide and brought to light several structural inefficacies that have especially impacted school-going children, with the vast multitude of Indian children falling further behind when schools went online. But this ever present and ever growing chasm could be the tipping point to make a quantum leap to improve education outcomes by harnessing and deploying technology. The Budget seeks to do exactly that by emphasising on the development of digital infrastructure in the field of education, as well as creating and expanding several policies in this regard. Given the level of disruption in education for the past two years, articulable directly to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Budget provides a robust framework for harnessing and refining the immense potential for change and improvement in the education sector by way of integrating technology into the existing curriculum. In line with New Education Policy 2020, the Budget focuses attention on all levels of education, from primary school to the university level, and promotes skill building. The proposed policies in the budget include the expansion of the PM eVidya One Class-One TV Channel programme from 12 TV channels to 200, in order to enable every State to provide supplementary education for classes 1 through 12 in all regional languages. This proposal to democratise education by addressing the issue of accessibility will help improve learning outcomes by offering identical content, in accessible languages, across the country. The Budget additionally proposes that a digital university be built, in order to provide access to higher education for students across the country. This programme seeks to bring "world-class quality universal education with personalized learning experience at their doorsteps" by way of establishing relationships through the spirit of collaboration with the best public universities and institutions in the country via a network of hub and spokes. What started as a global response during the pandemic-induced lockdown has opened up a world of possibilities for expanding access to university education to more people than ever before, bringing quality education within the reach of millions who may not have otherwise been able to benefit from the educational offerings in such institutions. A digital university can also provide opportunities for higher education to working people, creating a more educated and robust skilled workforce in the country. India already has experience of running open universities; digital universities may be a huge step-up in terms of quality, content and approach to higher education.
The Budget also envisages the creation of a digital ecosystem for skill development, the DESH-Stack e-portal. This e-portal intends to "skill, reskill, or upskill" individuals through online training and will provide application programming interface (API) based trusted skill certifications, along with payment and discovery layers to assist people in identifying jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities related to the skills they possess. The effort to align and develop skills based on industry requirements will encourage people to upskill their competencies at every stage of their lives or careers in order to stay job-relevant and develop skills essential to their fields. Additionally, it is proposed that over 750 virtual labs in science and mathematics will be set up in 2022-23, along with 75 skilling e-labs for simulated learning environments for vocational courses, in order to promote critical thinking skills and creativity. The Budget further states that high quality content shall be created in all spoken languages and will be delivered to the public through digital teachers, broadcasted by way of the internet, mobile phones, TV and the radio. Here, India's rapid adoption of smartphones will help develop and deliver content with a mobile-first, teacher-centric approach. The emphasis on content created in regional languages will provide equality in access to information and knowledge to people in every part of the country, creating localised and personalised offerings by breaking the language barrier.
The budgetary allocation for education has increased by 11.86% for the upcoming financial year, which will help create such digital infrastructure to promote and facilitate the policies and learning outcomes envisaged by the Budget. The proposals outlined will help in raising both the quality of education in general, and also provide several livelihood opportunities to people at every stage in their educational journey no matter the language they speak or the part of the country to which they belong. Additionally, the building and upkeep of physical infrastructure is equally important, and the classrooms of tomorrow will likely be comprised of a combination of digital and physical learning modes. Another encouraging aspect of these Budget proposals is that it attempts to harness the entrepreneurial talent in the country in order to deliver educational content.
Another sphere of importance is the push for technology in the Budget, which continues into the financial sector. It is proposed that 75 Digital Banking Units be set up by scheduled commercial banks in 75 selected districts of the country, in a move to introduce or familiarise the population with the responsible use of digital transactions and to expand the base of formal financial economy. The Finance Minister also confirmed that the Central Bank Digital Currency ("CBDC") will be issued by the Reserve Bank of India in Financial Year 2023. By exploiting blockchain and other technologies in this front, India will be amongst the first countries to issue an official digital currency. As the first move to provide a formalised operating framework for digital currency players, the CBDC would bring such digital payments within the regulatory framework, enabling increased financial inclusion and transparency. Further, in an acknowledgement of the popularity of virtual digital assets, the Budget proposals seek to bring such assets within the ambit of tax regulation, enabling the formalisation of this class of assets. The transfer or conversion of a virtual digital asset, such as cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens, into a 'conventional' asset like fiat currency, is proposed to attract a tax of 30% of the profit enjoyed upon such conversion. Further, by treating such transactions on par with other assets, tax will have to be deducted at source by the buyer at a proposed rate of 1% of the transaction value. However, any loss arising from such transactions will not be allowed to be set off against any person's gross total income. Additionally, gifts of digital assets will attract gift tax in the hands of the recipient. While we await the passage of a law on cryptocurrencies by Parliament, these proposed measures are the first step forward in the inclusion and regulation of this new financial frontier.
For this Budget, inclusion, both financial and educational, seems to be the name of the game. The proposals outlined therein aim to create and develop a digital ecosystem and ensure that citizens are future-ready to thrive in the digital age, creating a truly digital India. Harnessing technology is the spheres of education and finance will help formalise and democratise these spaces, enabling participation from more individuals than ever before.
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