IT minister terms the Budget 'digitally empowering'

New Delhi: Terming the Budget as "digitally empowering", IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today said that technology-backed initiatives announced today will help India become a more transparent economy.

The Budget has proposed a slew of initiatives for digitisation including expansion of optical fibre network, launch of 'Digi Gaon' initiative aimed at providing telemedicine, education and skills through use of technology, and new schemes to promote the use of mobile app BHIM.

In a bid to push digital payments, the Budget has also proposed duty exemption on POS machines and Iris readers. "There is a big digital push in this Budget ... From expanding the optical fibre support system to Digi Gaon ... to using digital connect in a big way for taking 50,000 gram panchayats out of poverty," Prasad told PTI.

He added that the Budget proposals are transformational and designed to make India a transparent economy. "It is a very transformational Budget designed to make India a transparent economy, rewarding the compliant and penalising the deviant," he said.

Highlighting the underlying thrust of technology on programmes across-the-board including those relating to rural India, the Minister said, "rural also has to become a part of the digital transformation". "The real aspiration now lies in the rural economy of India, which is waiting to be tapped for extraordinary growth," he said.

"It is a transformational, inclusive budget, digitally empowering Budget, designed to make India an honest country," he added.