Sunshine To Startups: Money For Ideas

The ₹1 tn innovation fund is expected to help India transition from a services economy to a research and manufacturing hub

- Nehal Chaliawala & Shouvik Das

The ₹1 trillion innovation fund announced by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the interim budget on Thursday is expected to give a big boost to local technology development and manufacturing, and help India move beyond providing high-tech services towards development of products, experts said.

In her interim budget speech on Thursday, Sitharaman said the fund would provide 50-year loans with low or nil interest rates to private-sector companies to scale up research and innovation in sunrise sectors. "For our tech-savvy youth, this will be a golden era," she said. "We need to have programmes that combine the powers of our youth and technology."