UNVEILING a ‘tax-free’ budget on June 12, the government has tried to not put any additional burden on the citizens while, at the same, tried to offer relief to industry and businesses in the hope of staging an economic bounce-back.

Even though the fiscal space was limited to play around with, the government has offered a reduction in customs duty on more than 2,000 tariff lines and reduced withholding tax to 14pc and 16pc. The startup and tech community has unsurprisingly found little to cheer in the latest budget.

While there was nothing specific in the budget document to the benefit of startups, some hints in Minister for Industries Hammad Azhar’s speech did point towards the government’s growing willingness to jump on the digital bandwagon. He said it was the premier’s vision to make the provision of public service smoother through the use of e-governance and a plan for this has been readied. Over Rs1 billion has been earmarked in this regard.

Moreover, Rs400 million and Rs100m have been set aside for technological upgrade and innovation funds, though it’s not much clear what the latter entails.

Under the education head, Mr Azhar mentioned the need to work on the 21st-century themes, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, automation and space technology and for that end specifically, the government has an outlay of Rs30bn.

However, at the same time, the Science and Technological Research Division saw its budgeted amount slashed by almost 40pc to Rs4.46bn in 2020-21. How much of it would be in operational and other recurring expenses, we don’t know.

Emphasising the government’s focus on emerging technologies and knowledge economy as well as improving research capacity, the minister also spoke about another Rs20bn for projects in areas like e-governance, IT-based services and 5G cellular services.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, June 15th, 2020