Start in India to 'Make in India': A startup CEO's plea for Budget 2016

2015 was a landmark year for startups in India. The world stood up and took notice of the amazing startup ecosystem here with investments for over 1000 startups valued at $9 billion.The spotlight was on how startups would be the pillars of India's economy and give a much needed impetus to India's growth by providing employment to millions.

And, with Budget 2016, being just a few days away, we thought it'd be interesting to talk about the highlights one by one:

Startup India: As I watched the entire startup community descend at Vigyan Bhawan to flag off the Startup India initiative, it was heartening to see the government recognise entrepreneurs as a driving force of modern change. Many new taxation and regulatory changes were promised and we eagerly wait to see how well they are implemented. TRAI's recent ruling on Free Basics is one of the first steps to ensure that any startup can leverage a free and open Internet to disrupt the status quo. Government needs to increase their focus on connecting millions through an open Internet and nip in the bud restrictive practices introduced by corporates only then would an initiative like Startup India be successful. Internet can give a voice to the unheard and to the new, and I hope government supports the startup ecosystem by aggressively ensuring that an unrestricted Internet is within everyone's reach.

Make in India: I was blown away by the fact that the government had attracted investments worth $222 billion towards the Make In India initiative. Strengthening manufacturing is one of the core priorities and given India’s growing potential to be one of the top economic powerhouses in the world, I have no doubt that we can definitely achieve this. Focusing on quality STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine) education and supplementing blue collar workers with modern manufacturing skills is the 1st step towards this. In order to achieve economies of scale, automation is a crucial step and we need to note how it impacts millions of jobs.

Where Startup India will meet Make In India: "Coding is the new ABC" and must be taught in schools and colleges. Make In India will only be successful if we view technology as a tool for massive, positive societal change. Think about it-Google disrupted libraries, Amazon disrupted shopping malls, Uber disrupted public transportation, and MobiKwik is disrupting cash. In order to see startups make in india the government needs to encourage more hardware startups by the means of doing away with certain import duties.

If India is to give birth to many Silicon Valleys and encourage indigenous manufacturing then we need to start thinking on the lines of 3D Printing, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and the like. It will propel us towards living up the ‘Make in India’ vision.

On the Wallet Sector: Internally at MobiKwik we have a saying that "MobiKwik exists so that cash does not". According to a recent report until 2015 over 200 million still remain unbanked in India and even the remaining don’t have 100% access to all the banking services. The propagation and rapid adoption of mobile wallets is a step in addressing this gap. Government needs to start right at the grassroots-level and allow tax rebates to retailers in order to increase wallet usage. Cash-on-delivery still accounts for over 45 percent of e-commerce orders since people are apprehensive or don’t have means to make online payments. Government needs to relax its banking norms so that mobile wallet companies can function better than banks and offer financially inclusive services to millions more.

(This article is authored by Bipin Preet Singh, CEO of MobiKwik)