Pre-Budget Comments from Industry Leaders
Saturday, January 31, 2026
The Indian government will table the budget for the coming financial year soon, to be debated over in the Parliament.
The industry leaders from various segments have expressed their hopes and aspirations about it. Following are their comments -
“We see the upcoming Union Budget as a pivotal moment to move from digital-first to intelligence-first infrastructure. The progress made in AI, data platforms and digital public infrastructure has laid a strong foundation. The next opportunity lies in scaling this intelligence into the physical world. Agentic AI is already enabling systems that can reason, decide and act autonomously in digital environments. As this evolves into Physical AI, embedded across manufacturing, energy, mobility, healthcare and urban infrastructure, it creates a powerful ‘Phygital’ (digital + physical) ecosystem where software intelligence continuously optimises real-world assets.
India’s strength is its vast physical infrastructure footprint, now rapidly being digitised. Targeted policy support for AI-enabled data centres, robotics, edge intelligence and incentives for AI adoption across traditional infrastructure can accelerate this transition, driving productivity, resilience and global competitiveness. With the right focus on compute, talent and responsible deployment, India can emerge not just as a consumer of AI but as a global leader in engineering intelligent systems that seamlessly connect the digital and physical worlds.”
“We expect targeted incentives for cloud infrastructure and responsible AI adoption to enable more startups to compete at a global level. A budget that reinforces ease of doing business while encouraging innovation will accelerate India’s transition into a high-growth digital economy.”
This Budget is an opportunity to ignite India’s next wave of tech-led scaleups. AI-ready infrastructure and developer incentives can unlock rapid innovation, especially for startups building generative AI and analytics solutions. Clarity on data governance, R&D funding support, and tax incentives that reward long-term product investments will be critical.”
“As MSMEs continue to embrace enterprise digitisation, policy clarity on GST for SaaS, streamlined compliance frameworks; and easier access to growth capital will materially improve adoption. Predictable policies on data security, data sovereignty, and skilling for digital roles are essential to bridge the gap between ambition and execution.”
--Akash Nangia, Co-Founder, Techjockey
"Over the past year, the government has already taken several steps income tax rates were reduced early on, GST cuts followed and the RBI has consistently lowered rates. From that perspective, a lot of what needed to be done has already been addressed.
--Kalyanaraman R, MD, BlinkX by JM Financial
"The Union Budget 2026 is coming at a pivotal time in the global context, and we believe India has to act decisively and quickly to emerge stronger from the current geopolitical and trade turmoil. With trade treaties and routes getting reset, India is being courted as a reliable and strong trade partner.
We have to build on this opportunity by focussing on strategic sectors including Manufacturing, Defence, Infrastructure and Energy. True self reliance will only be realised when we incentivise private enterprise to build deep supply chains in these sectors. By building robust, localised ecosystems, we insulate our growth from global shocks. The next big opportunity to invest in is local AI sector enablement and AI led growth. With an abundance of data and talent, this is the industry for India to build over this decade.
For deep and inclusive growth, the MSME sector needs to be provided with further support through access to key resources - affordable credit through more accessible Credit Guarantee schemes and continuously improving ease of doing business. For export led journey towards developed India, key catalysts needed are access to financing of cross border trade and further simplification of trade documentation. We hope the budget will come up with focused measures on the exports credit front."
"As India accelerates its digital and AI ambitions, we are expecting the upcoming Union Budget to focus on three critical enablers - (1) Elevating datacentres from infrastructure status to actually treating them as an End-to-End National Digital Infrastructure with coherent policies on power access, renewable integration, land availability and faster time-bound approvals across central, state and local authorities (2) Strengthening the country’s power transmission backbone and (3) Providing policy certainty for renewable energy adoption at scale. Given the central role of digital infrastructure in India’s economic and strategic ambitions, these enablers will be critical to sustaining long-term growth and strengthening India’s global competitiveness.”
The above comments show that these spokespersons are well aware o the economic and industrial trajectory of the country. They also have some ideas about how to take the industry forward. They have also given some thoughts to the development of the MSME sector. The government should reflect over these suggstions.
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