Budget 2025 Expectations: Increased Allocation For Upskilling, Policies To Stabilise Raw Material Supply

Ahead of the Union Budget, Tata Technologies Ltd. on Monday called for increased allocation toward upskilling initiatives aligned with Industry 4.0 to create a future-ready workforce.

In order to achieve India's ambitious goals outlined in the roadmap for a $5 trillion economy, the budget should prioritise innovation-driven policies, investments in emerging technologies, and the development of products in India, for India and the world, Tata Technologies' Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Warren Harris said in a statement.

Read full story here.

Ahead of the Union Budget, MakeMyTrip Co-founder and Group Chief Executive Officer Rajesh Magow on Monday said the hospitality sector's long-pending demand for an "industry” status and continued focus on infrastructure development to ensure last-mile connectivity are crucial to realising its full potential.

"The hope is that it should be a growth-oriented budget, which effectively should set the tone for pretty much every sector, including travel and tourism sector for us as well," Magow told PTI.

Read Full story here.

However, the government's thrust on capex is expected to continue in FY26. "We expect robust capital spending to remain a key theme in the Budget, both at the centre and state level, notwithstanding the weak trend in the current fiscal year," Morgan Stanley analysts stated in a note.

We advocate for policies that stabilise raw material supply, encourage R&D through tax benefits, and provide subsidies for technological upgrades, shared Kuldip Raina, director-Sales and Marketing at Shalimar Paints. "These steps will reduce production costs, lower energy expenses, and enable greater industry participation," he said.

"The budget has the potential to be a turning point for the paint industry. With heightened investments in construction, including housing, cement, and steel, along with targeted fiscal policies, the industry looks for robust growth. These measures will not only support fiscal deficit reduction goals but also significantly contribute to India's economic development," said Raina.

Shams Tabrej, CEO at Ezeepay expects a further boost to fintech funding, especially for rural regions, which might lead to an investment growth upward of 20-25% at best. 

"The Union Budget will build upon the prodigious leap that India witnessed concerning digital payments with over 12 billion UPI transactions monthly and a transaction volume of over Rs 15 trillion in 2024," Tabrej shared. 

"Fintech innovation funding and sops for tax are likely to dominate. The startups trying to make advances and progress towards making AI the standard in AI for fraud detection and secured payment systems may garner 10-15% R&D budget enhancement. Furthermore, it is also expected that merchant onboarding benefits may be included in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, thereby accelerating wider adoption by this sector in the digital payments field," he said.

Subsidies for real-time payment solutions such as the UPI, which now governs more than 75% of the retail digital transactions, could be furthered with the intent to expand their scale and interoperability. Likewise, any expansion of schemes for bringing in 100 million more digital payment users from rural areas will be viewed with much interest. 

Tabrej highlighted that the budget will harness a $350 billion digital economy as India beings going through inclusive growth, innovation, and secure digital payment systems to promote financial inclusion and economic advancement.