“Budget ’23 aligns with our aim of skilling 50 million people by 2026 across regions,” says Pravin Agarwal, Co founder & Group CEO, BetterPlace
“The Union Budget 22-23 presented by FM Nirmala Sitharaman strongly echoed Centre’s vision of increasing & scaling up employability in India, with holistic skilling being the key foundation, which beautifully aligns with our aim of skilling 50 million people by 2026, across regions. Initiatives like setting up of a National Skill Portal will further boost up the frontline workforce and widen opportunities to choose work, and increase their earnings potential.
Rejigging the income-tax slabs in the new tax regime with no tax on income of up to ₹7 lakh a year – up from ₹5 lakh, indicates the Government’s thoughtfulness towards ensuring a life of wellbeing and extending an indirect financial aid of sorts to the gig workers, allowing them to save slightly more.
The Budget also stressed upon taking more collective efforts towards bringing more Women workers to the forefront with Schemes such as Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas, which strongly mirrors our collective efforts of empowering women and uplifting their dignity & wellbeing.
However, it being the first budget in Amritkaal, we were expecting more cemented & direct policies which could further help formalize the gig economy & incentivise enterprises to mandate medical & health insurance of frontline and gig-workers.
As per a Niti Aayog Report, the Gig Workforce is in fact expected to expand to 23.5 million workers by 2029-30. Moreover, the gig economy has the potential to transact over $250 billion in volume of work and contribute 1.25 percent to India’s GDP over the long term, indicating that the sector is moving in the right direction with a steady focus to capture leading businesses across the globe. This only goes to portray that the gig economy has formed a significant chunk of the total Indian workforce today, becoming a lucrative option for small & large enterprises, making them indispensable for the future of Indian workforce. Hence, we were hoping for more consolidated schemes & policies which could benefit the gig workers, especially when the government had stated in G20 that they would create an employment working group to study gig. While the government has taken skilling initiatives under PMKVY 4.0 which will impact gig-workforce indirectly, a more direct intervention would have been ideal.
On the permanent frontline workforce side we were hoping that the government would provide incentives to small enterprises to enable them to give health benefits and insurance to the frontline workers that they employ. We have noticed that enterprises have a renewed focus on providing benefits like insurance as it improves retention and wellbeing of the workers which has significant economic advantages for the company. However, for smaller companies, providing such benefits is a significant cost. To ensure well-being is maintained and retention is increased we believe the budget could have given tax incentives to smaller businesses so that the formalization of the workforce is accelerated.
The frontline workforce in India is fast becoming formal. With over 8 million new jobs being created in this fiscal year and with 9 million estimated to be created in the upcoming financial year, we are positively hopeful that Budget 24-25 will include more provisions & allowances which could benefit the gig economy too, and keep frontline workers at the focal point.”
(The author is Mr. Pravin Agarwala, Co-founder & Group CEO, BetterPlace and the views expressed in this article are his own)
