Wish I could bring taxes to almost nil but India needs to fund research, says Nirmala Sitharaman

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman addresses the officers of the Income Tax department from Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh region, in Bhopal.
| Photo Credit: ANI

Ms. Sitharaman made the statement while addressing students at the 11th convocation ceremony of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Bhopal.

She said the government has invested heavily in the renewable energy sector and that India is leading in implementing the commitments given in various climate-related conferences like the COP summits.

“The world has promised a lot of money towards transitioning from fossil fuel to renewable energy but that money is yet to come. But India didn’t wait. The promises given in Paris (Paris Agreement) were fulfilled with our own money. There are times when being the Finance Minister, it doesn’t give me motivation when I have to answer people about why our taxes are like this. Why can’t we even be lower than this? I wish I can bring it down to almost nil. But India’s challenges are severe and challenges will have to be overcome,” she said.

“The government is not just talking. It’s putting money into R&D (research and development). I will emphasise and give you some data on that so that you have the confidence that this country and the money it earns out of taxation,” she said, adding that it was her job to generate revenue but not to trouble people.

Ms. Sitharaman highlighted that the country needs money to be able to fund research. “Anyone who disagrees? Do we need to fund research or not?” Mr. Sitharaman asked the crowd.

Sharing insights into the government’s funding for various research and innovation initiatives, Ms. Sitharaman said that in the Interim Budget of 2024, before the Lok Sabha elections, the government announced the establishment of an ‘Anusandhan Kosh’, a corpus of ₹1 lakh crore to provide long-term financing to support research and innovation in sunrise domains.

“We are strengthening Deep-Tech technologies, which will help the Defence Sector become ‘Aatmanirbhar’. ‘Innovation, Research & Development’ is one of the key priorities of our government’s policies for making sure India becomes a developed nation by 2047,” she said.

“We recently approved the ‘India AI Mission’ with a budget outlay of ₹10,300 crore for building computing infrastructure, developing indigenous AI capabilities, attracting AI talent, and financing AI start-ups,” she noted.

“The National Green Hydrogen Mission launched in January 2023 has an outlay of around ₹20,000 crore for 5 years, that will make India a global hub for the production, usage and export of Green Hydrogen and its derivatives and enable India to be energy independent by 2047,” she said.

The Finance Minister said that under the India Semiconductor Mission, launched in 2021, the work has already begun on three units for assembling, testing & packaging of semiconductor chips. “They’re being setup in Gujarat and Assam. More States are coming forward for the same,” she said.

She also attended an interactive session with the Income Tax officers of the Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh region.