Union Budget 2022: India's goals for climate change, clean energy, 5G & space economy

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman,on February 1, presented the Union Budget 2022 wherein she introduced many reforms and schemes in the farming, manufacturing and education sectors in a bid to give a boost to the pandemic-hit economy. Among these reforms, the transition to clean energy and climate change were also given due consideration as India aims to achieve the target of producing 280 GW of energy through solar power by 2030.

Energy transition and climate change

Quoting Prime Minister Narendra Modi from his speech at the November 2021's COP26 summit in Glasgow, Sitharaman said, "What is needed today is mindful and deliberated utilisation instead of mindless destructive consumption". Revealing the energy transition plans, the finance minister said that this budget proposes several near-term and long-term actions targeting sustainable development. For that, the government announced the allocation of Rs 19,500 crores under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme to facilitate domestic manufacturing to achieve the target of 280 GW by 2030. 

"The strategy opens up a huge employment opportunity and will take the country on a sustainable path", FM Sitharaman said in her speech. Speaking on climate change, she said "The risks of climate change are the strongest negative externalities that affect India and other countries". For this sector, the government will commence four pilot projects for coal gasification and conversion of coal into chemicals to enhance technical and financial viability.

FM announces 5G spectrum auctions

For the development of the telecommunication sector, Sitharaman announced that the spectrum auctions for 5G services in India will commence in 2022. Besides, in a bid to connect remote areas, the government is targeting to lay optical fiber in villages by 2025, a process that will begin this year under the Bharat Net project. A scheme for design-led manufacturing to build a strong 5G ecosystem as part of the PLI scheme is also in the pipeline. 

Sitharaman revealed that the Centre is also focused on developing geospatial systems, semiconductor systems and space economy, which according to the Economic Survey 2022 has immense potential. With Rs 14,217.46 crore allocated to the Ministry of Science & Technology for 2022-23, the Department of Science and Technology comprising India’s space program has received Rs6,000 crore. With the Science & Technology department receiving the biggest share, the rest of the amount will be divided between the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (Rs 5,636.46) and the Department of Biotechnology (Rs 2,581 crores).
It is worth noting that the Centre has allocated the space sector Rs833 crore more than what it received in the previous financial year.

The survey released yesterday had revealed that over 100 startups are now part of India's space economy. The growth was the most visible in 2021 when 47 new startups joined the space sector as compared to just 11 in 2019. The Centre had recently established the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) with an aim to attract space industries for a boom in India's space sector.  It is worth mentioning that the global space economy is currently valued at $447 billion, and India accounts for 2% of the total, according to the Economic Survey.

Image: ANI/Pixabay