PM Narendra Modi urges for self-reliance in technology sectors, calls gaming a big opportunity

The prime minister also focused the significance of a robust data security framework for the country.

While giving the inaugural speech at the post-budget webinar organised by the department of the Principal Scientific Advisor glancing at “Technology-Enabled Development’’, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday urged industry leaders from science sectors to increase venture in sunrise sectors traced in the budget, including geospatial technology, drones, genomics and AI.

The Prime Minister especially emphasized the gaming sector, which he told had a huge international market, and that India was investigating improving its footprint.

Advertisement

“As you know, over the past two years, we have launched some new traditions – the first is bringing forward the union budget by an entire month. The budget is implemented from April 1st, so we get two months in between to be ready for this. We are attempting to get all stakeholders in this in-between interval – from central and state governments, public and private parties, departments etc – so that we can all come jointly and look at how the budget can be executed most effectively. This is a collective effort to assure how, in the light of budget, can we execute the expenditures promptly, seamlessly and with the optimum result,” asserted the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister told that for this government, science and technology is not a deserted sector. In the field of economy, the vision is associated with fields like digital economy and fintech.

“Similarly developed technology has a big role in infrastructure and public service delivery associated vision. Technology for us is a medium to entrust the people of the nation. For us, technology is the mainstay of making the nation self-reliant. The same vision is reflected in this year’s budget as well”, he announced.

Modi underlined the budget’s priority on sunrise sectors like artificial intelligence, geo-spatial systems, drones, semi-conductors, space technology, genomics, pharmaceuticals and healthy technologies to 5G. He announced that the budget lays down an obvious roadmap for 5G spectrum auction and PLI schemes have been formulated for design-led manufacturing associated with a strong 5G eco-system. He implored the private sector to improve their efforts in this area.

“The gaming market is massive internationally and the number of youth attached to this market globally is expanding. That is why in this year’s budget we have concentrated on Animation Visual Effects Gaming Comic (AVGC),’’ he said.

Pointing upon the centrality of communication centres and fintech, the prime minister urged for an indigenous ecosystem with less foreign dependence for the both. “The world has seen our dependability from our self-sustainability to vaccine production at the time of Covid. We have to imitate this success in every area,” Modi said adding that in the future, most of India’s wish of medical equipment should be fulfilled domestically.

The prime minister also focused on the significance of a robust data security framework for the country for which he announced India now requires to frame standards and norms.

Modi also talked about the Rs 2 lakh crore worth PLI schemes in 14 key sectors, in order to stimulate manufacturing in the country. He persuaded stakeholders to focus innovations and investment in optical fibres in citizen services, e-waste management, circular economy and electric mobility.