Budget Powers Viksit Bharat with Jobs, Energy, And Innovation Focus

There were increased expectations from Union Budget 2025-26 concerning building on the momentum of last year’s nine budget plan priorities – and employment it has actually provided. With India marching towards realising the Viksit Bharat vision, this spending plan takes definitive actions for high-impact development. The Economic Survey’s price quote of 6.4% real GDP growth and retail inflation softening from 5.4% in FY24 to 4.9% in FY25 enhances India’s position as the world’s fastest-growing major economy. The budget plan for the coming fiscal has capitalised on sensible financial management and enhances the 4 crucial pillars of India’s financial durability – tasks, energy security, manufacturing, and development.

India needs to develop 7.85 million non-agricultural jobs yearly up until 2030 – and this spending plan steps up. It has boosted labor force capabilities through the launch of 5 National Centres of Excellence for Skilling and intends to align training with “Make for India, Make for the World” manufacturing requirements. Additionally, a growth of capacity in the IITs will accommodate 6,500 more trainees, ensuring a constant pipeline of technical skill. It also recognises the function of micro and small enterprises (MSMEs) in generating employment. The improvement of credit assurances for micro and small enterprises from 5 crore to 10 crore, opens an additional 1.5 lakh crore in loans over 5 years. This, coupled with personalized charge card for micro business with a 5 lakh limitation, will improve capital gain access to for employment small . While these steps are commendable, the scaling of industry-academia cooperation along with fast-tracking employment training will be essential to ensuring sustained task production.

India stays highly reliant on Chinese imports for solar modules, electric car (EV) batteries, and crucial electronic parts, exposing the sector to geopolitical risks and trade barriers. This budget plan takes this difficulty head-on. It designates 81,174 crore to the energy sector, a considerable increase from the 63,403 crore in the current fiscal, signalling a significant push toward strengthening supply chains and minimizing import dependence. The exemptions for 35 extra capital products required for EV battery production contributes to this. The decrease of import duty on solar cells from 25% to 20% and solar modules from 40% to 20% alleviates costs for developers while India scales up domestic production capability. The allotment to the ministry of new and sustainable energy (MNRE) has increased 53% to 26,549 crore, with the PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana seeing an 80% jump to 20,000 crore. These measures provide the definitive push, however to truly attain our climate objectives, we need to also speed up investments in battery recycling, important mineral extraction, and tactical supply chain combination.

With capital investment approximated at 4.3% of GDP, the highest it has actually been for the past ten years, this spending plan lays the foundation for India’s production renewal. Initiatives such as the National Manufacturing Mission will offer enabling policy support for little, medium, and large markets and will further strengthen the Make-in-India vision by strengthening domestic value chains. Infrastructure remains a traffic jam for producers. The spending plan addresses this with huge financial investments in logistics to decrease supply chain costs, which presently stand at 13-14% of GDP, substantially higher than that of many of the established nations (~ 8%). A foundation of the Mission is clean tech manufacturing. There are promising procedures throughout the value chain. The budget plan introduces customs duty exemptions on lithium-ion battery scrap, cobalt, and 12 other crucial minerals, securing the supply of essential products and enhancing India’s position in global clean-tech worth chains.

Despite India’s prospering tech community, research and advancement (R&D) financial investments remain below 1% of GDP, compared to 2.4% in China and 3.5% in the US. Future jobs will require Industry 4.0 capabilities, and India must prepare now. This budget deals with the gap. An excellent start is the government designating 20,000 crore to a private-sector-driven Research, Development, employment and Innovation (RDI) initiative. The budget plan identifies the transformative potential of expert system (AI) by presenting the PM Research Fellowship, which will offer 10,000 fellowships for technological research in IITs and IISc with enhanced financial backing. This, together with a Centre of Excellence for AI and 50,000 Atal Tinkering Labs in federal government schools, are positive actions towards a knowledge-driven economy.