Budget 2024: FM announces Rs. 1 trillion easy funding for sunrise sectors
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the government of India will establish a Rs. 1 trillion corpus to incentivize innovation and research on sunrise domains. The fund will have a provision of 50 year interest free loans and will provide long term financing and refinancing for long tenures with low or zero interest rates, Sitharaman said in her budget speech.
“This will encourage the private sector to scale up research and innovation significantly in sunrise domains," Sitharaman explained.
“We need to have programmes that combine the powers of our youth and technology," Sitharaman added. She also said it aid research on deep tech for defence purposes, which would also enhance self-reliance.
This comes at a time when a number of major economies, including the United States, have put greater resources into financing research and innovation. Countries have raced to make breakthroughs in advanced technology domains, particularly in fields like semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) development.
