Centre's Rs. 1tn fund offers interest-free loans to boost innovation
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, presented the Interim Budget 2024-25, in the Parliament today. She announced that the Centre will establish a fund of Rs. 1 lakh crore that will facilitate 50-year interest-free loans to boost innovation. This will offer long-term financing at low or zero interest rates for the private companies, so that they can scale up research in the sunrise sectors.
'Golden era for tech-savvy youth'
Describing the reason behind setting up the corpus, Sitharaman said, "As innovation is the foundation of development, for our tech-savvy youth, this will be a golden era." So, what is a sunrise industry? It can be described as one that is new, is growing fast, and is likely to become important in the future. Examples include hydrogen fuel production and space.
Who will benefit from these interest-free loans?
Companies like Avaada, Hydrogen Gentech, NewTrace, and Ossus Biorenewables (for hydrogen fuel production), and AgniKul Cosmos, Bellatrix Aerospace (for space) might benefit from such loans. At a time when funding in start-ups is at its lowest, this corpus might help companies with seed capital to innovate and develop their tech, products, as well as services.
