Budget 2024: What's in it for the Indian youth?

Budget 2024: The budget of a country as huge as India is likely to include a lot of number-crunching and complex descriptions of matters. But provisions for youth is one area everyone has their eyes on. As she presented the interim Budget 2024, India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman spoke about steps PM Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Partry (BJP) government had taken to benefit the youth.

During her speech in the Parliament of India, she appeared to project the government's vision for the Indian youth. This particular budget, though called interim, is important as general elections are due in India in a matter of months. Public perception, especially in election year indeed matters.

At first, the finance minister took a review of government activitiesso far in this area.

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She said in her speech that India's prosperity is dependent on adequately equipping and empowering the youth. She said that the new education policy (National Education Policy 2020) has ushered in transformational changes.

"PM ScHools for Rising India (PM SHRI) are delivering quality teaching, and nurturing holistic and well-rounded individuals," she said.

Sitharaman then spoke about the Skill India Mission, saying that the programme has so far trained 1.4 crore (14 million) Indian youngsters and has been reskilling and upskilling 54 lakh (5.4 million) youths.

"[The mission has] established 3000 new ITIs. A large number of new institutions of higher learning, namely 7 IITs, 16 IIITs, 7 IIMs, 15 AIIMS and 390 universities have been set up," said Sitharaman.

She talkedabout what the government has done to encourage entrepreneurship among youth.

"The PM Mudra Yojana has sanctioned Rs 43 crore loans (USD 5.1 million) aggregating to 22.5 lakh crore for the entrepreneurial aspirations of our youth. Besides that, Fund of Funds, Start Up India, and Start Up Credit Guarantee schemes are assisting our youth," she said, adding that through their entrepreneurial skills, Indian youths are becoming 'rozgardata' (employment providers).

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About the government's plans, the finance minister said that it was planning to set up more medical colleges. The existing hospital infrastructure will be utilised for this. The government will set up a committee to examine this and make recommendations.

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Sitharaman said that the tech-savvy youth in the country is set to experience a 'golden era' unfolding in the years ahead.

"A corpus of rupees one lakh crore (USD 12 billion) will be established with a 50-year interest-free loan. The corpus will provide long-term financing or refinancing with long tenure and low or nil interest rates. This will encourage the private sector to scale up research and innovation significantly in sunrise domains. We need to have programmes that combine the powers of our youth and technology," said Sitharaman.

(With inputs from agencies)