AI, Digital Libraries, And More: Technologies Of Future Get Boost In India's Budget 2023
As is a yearly custom, the Indian government released its budget for the year 2023 on Wednesday, February 1. Naturally, the budget touched on various technologies that are currently dictating various industries. Some key facets included artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, smartphone manufacturing, and lithium ion batteries.
Artificial intelligence
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the central government's signature Make-in-India campaign would be expanded to include AI. As part of this, three Centres for Excellence for AI will be set up across the country. These centres will be incorporated within the country's top educational institutions to develop future-ready apps in various fields - be it agriculture or health.
The goal is to realise the vision of "make AI in India" and "make AI work for India."
"Leading industry players will partner in conducting interdisciplinary research, develop cutting-edge applications and scalable problem solutions in the areas of agriculture, health, and sustainable cities. This will galvanise an effective AI ecosystem and nurture quality human resources in the field," the finance minister said.??
Simpler KYC
Finance minister announced an update to the country's National Data Governance Policy with focus on innovation and research for startups. Moreover, the know-your-customer (KYC) process would be simplified via a single-stop for updating one's credentials and address through DigiLocker, a ledger that captures and stores an individual's documents to consolidate and make sharing easier.?
In addition, Sitharaman announced that DigiLocker would now support more documents.
National digital libraries
The government is also setting up national digital libraries to aid the digitisation of education mediums across the country, as part of the Digital India initiative. According to N. Sitharaman, a wide range of books would be made available across geographies in various languages and genres. Such libraries are expected to work on all devices.?
?"States will be encouraged to set up physical libraries for them at panchayat and ward levels and provide infrastructure for accessing the National Digital Library resources," Sitharaman announced.??
Similarly, 100 labs would be set up across engineering institutions in India to help develop applications using 5G services with focus on expanding employment.
EVs and batteries
"I propose to continue the concessional duty on lithium-ion cells for batteries for another year",? announced Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as she delivered her fifth budget.
In terms of electric vehicles, the government is making batteries cheaper this financial year. This could mean that affordable EVs could be seen on Indian streets very soon.?In May 2021,? the government launched the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for manufacturing batteries that run electric vehicles with the goal to bring down the costs of key components. To this end, Goods and Services Tax (GST) on the sale of electric vehicles was reduced from 12% to 5%.
Similarly, relief has been provided to smartphone manufacturers for certain camera lenses, lithium batteries, extending the courtesy from last year.??
Digital public infra for agriculture
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced plans to set up an agriculture-centric digital public infrastructure?with the goal to make it an "open source, open standard, and interoperable public good."
"This will enable inclusive farmer-centric solutions through relevant information services, for crop planning and health, improved access to farm inputs, credit and insurance, help for crop estimation, market intelligence and support for the growth of agri-tech industry and startup," she said.
"It will also bring in modern technologies to transform agricultural practices and increase productivity and profitability."??
Do you think the budget does justice to the needs of a future-forward India? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.?For more in the world of?technology?and?science, keep reading?Indiatimes.com.? ?
