NEW DELHI: Singh said the 11 per cent increase in capital expenditure (capex) to Rs 11.11 lakh crore for the next financial year, and the provision to provide Rs 75,000 crore as interest-free loan for 50 years to support reforms by states, will help further improve the country’s logistics efficiency, connectivity and cut down the logistics cost.

Provisions related to research and development “hopefully trigger some greater private sector investments in R &D. Announcement of a new scheme for strengthening deep-tech technologies is good for startups also... It will give a boost to India’s increasingly becoming an innovation led economy,” Singh said.

“The USP of the Budget is the combination of fiscal consolidation but continued focus on capex and on hard infrastructure such as roads, highways and railways,” he added.