While enunciating the government’s vision of providing a transparent and accountable administration which works for the betterment and welfare of the common citizen, the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Smt Nirmala Sitharaman, presented the Union Budget 2023-24 in Parliament today. The Finance Minister highlighted ‘Unleasing the Potential’ as one of the important component of the seven priorities i.e ‘Saptarishi’, guiding the nation through Amrit Kaal.

Mission Karamyogi

“Under Mission Karmayogi, Centre, States and Union Territories are making and implementing capacity-building plans for civil servants.”, the Finance Minister said while highlighting the government’s initiative of iGOT Karamyogi for providing a learning opportunity to lakhs of government employees to upgrade their skills.

Promoting Trust-based governance

Smt. Sitharaman mentioned that 39,000 compliances have been reduced and more than

3,400 legal provisions have been decriminalized for enhancing ease of doing business. The Jan Vishwas Bill to amend 42 Central Acts has also been introduced by the government.

Finance Minister proposed a series of measures to ‘unleash the potential of economy’. 

Centres of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence

For realizing the vision of “Make AI in India and Make AI work for India”, three Centres of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence have been proposed to be set-up in top educational institutions. Finance Minister announced that leading industry players will partner in conducting interdisciplinary research, develop cutting-edge applications and scalable problem solutions in various fields such as agriculture, health, and sustainable cities, thereby  galvanizing an effective AI ecosystem and nurture quality human resources.

National Data Governance Policy

To unleash innovation and research by start-ups and academia, a National Data Governance Policy has also been proposed to enable access to anonymized data.

Digital Solutions for India

The KYC process will be simplified adopting a ‘risk-based’ instead of ‘one size fits all’ approach. Finance Minister announced that the financial sector regulators will also be encouraged to have a KYC system fully amenable to meet the needs of Digital India.

Finance Minister also proposed establishment of a one stop solution for reconciliation and updating of identity and address of individuals maintained by various government agencies, regulators and regulated entities, using DigiLocker service and Aadhaar as foundational identity.

Ease of Doing Business

Finance Minister announced that for the business establishments required to have a Permanent Account Number (PAN), PAN will be used as the common identifier for all digital systems of specified government agencies, which will be facilitated through a legal mandate.

A system of ‘Unified Filing Process’ has also been proposed for obviating the need for separate submission of same information to different government agencies. “Such filing of information or return in simplified forms on a common portal, will be shared with other agencies as per filer’s choice.”, she added.

RM/KS