The Union Budget 2026-27, presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1, 2026, marks her ninth consecutive budget and emphasizes a Yuva Shakti-driven approach to transform India’s demographic dividend into productive capacity. The budget focuses on accelerating sustainable economic growth, fulfilling citizen aspirations through skilling and employment, and ensuring inclusive development under the vision of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas.
Key highlights include a record public capital expenditure of ₹12.2 lakh crore (up nearly 9% from the previous year), aimed at bolstering infrastructure, manufacturing, and urban resilience. The fiscal deficit is projected at 4.3% of GDP, reflecting continued fiscal prudence amid global uncertainties. Other major announcements encompass incentives for digital infrastructure (including a tax holiday till 2047 for foreign companies providing global cloud services via Indian data centres), a ₹10,000 crore SME Growth Fund, additional support for the Self-Reliant India Fund, manufacturing boosts in strategic sectors like semiconductors and biopharma, and targeted development of Tier-II and Tier-III cities through City Economic Regions with ₹5,000 crore per region.
Industry leaders across sectors have welcomed the budget’s emphasis on infrastructure-led growth, digital enablement, MSME support, and workforce readiness.
Manish Jain, Managing Director of Enviro Infra Engineers Limited, highlighted the infrastructure push: “India’s Union Budget 2026 reinforces the government’s continued commitment to infrastructure led growth, sustainability and environmental resilience. The substantial increase in public capital expenditure to a record ₹12.2 lakh crore underlines a strong push for modern and integrated infrastructure development across transport, logistics, urban and water systems — a priority that directly expands opportunities in water, wastewater, sanitation and environmental engineering. The emphasis on creating new national waterways, enhancing multimodal logistics, and strengthening urban infrastructure aligns closely with our strategic focus on delivering advanced and scalable environmental solutions. This policy environment also merges with broader initiatives to catalyse resilient urbanisation and sustainable economic growth, while supporting state level reforms and long term project pipelines. For Enviro Infra Engineers Limited, these measures not only affirm our positioning in driving sustainable infrastructure outcomes but also motivates further investments in cutting edge technology, skilled human capital and innovative project execution to support India’s development goals. As India accelerates towards inclusive, environmentally responsible growth, the Budget reinforces the role of sustainable engineering as both a national imperative and a business opportunity.”
In the digital and tech space, Kaushal Bansal, CEO & Co-Founder of CallerDesk: “Union Budget 2026–27 strengthens India’s digital infrastructure runway by encouraging cloud and data-centre investment. The tax holiday till 2047 for foreign companies providing global cloud services using India-based data centres is a strong signal to expand domestic capacity and long-term confidence in India’s cloud ecosystem. The Budget also improves policy clarity for IT services by enhancing the safe-harbour threshold from ₹300 crore to ₹2,000 crore and moving it to an automated, rule-driven process—steps that can reduce compliance friction. For MSMEs, the ₹10,000 crore SME Growth Fund and the ₹2,000 crore top-up to the Self-Reliant India Fund can improve access to risk capital. This matters because IDC projects India’s public cloud services market to reach $17.8 billion by 2027. For telecom and customer communication platforms, stronger cloud capacity can accelerate adoption of AI-led capabilities like conversational automation, real-time analytics and workflow intelligence—helping businesses improve service quality, responsiveness and operational efficiency at scale.”
Umair Mohammed, Founder CEO at Nitro Commerce, added: “The Budget 2026/27 is a big win for India’s middle class and our small businesses alike. The government is thinking about MSME, which is a big contributor to GDP, and thus the 10,000 cr is a big injection to support and grow the MSME. Cloud and Ai infra tax break is also a great initiative that will allow innovation to foster keeping inference cost down. The emphasis on AI, cloud incentives, and data infrastructure also makes advanced technology more accessible for MSMEs and retailers, enabling smarter marketing, predictive planning, and personalized customer experiences tools that were once the domain of large corporations. By democratizing growth and technology, this Budget lays the foundation for a future where India’s middle class and MSMEs can thrive together, driving sustainable economic growth.”
Kunal Sharma, Founder CEO of Flipspaces, noted the built-environment benefits: “The Budget 2026–27 reinforces a strong growth runway for India’s built-environment ecosystem. With ₹12.2 lakh crore in capital expenditure, sustained infrastructure creation and urban expansion will continue to drive demand for integrated, outcome-driven Design & Build solutions. The Budget’s focused support for MSMEs and SMEs, including dedicated growth capital and improved credit flow, strengthens enterprise confidence and accelerates workspace creation across manufacturing, services, and new-age businesses, a core demand driver for Flipspaces. A key structural tailwind is the growing policy emphasis on Global Capability Centres (GCCs). As GCCs evolve from cost centres to innovation and R&D hubs, demand is shifting toward high-performance, tech-enabled, and experience-led workspaces. This creates meaningful opportunities for design-led space planning, rapid execution, and scalable delivery models. Combined with incentives around digital infrastructure, AI, and supply-chain resilience, the Budget enables faster project cycles, better material availability, and data-driven execution aligning well with Flipspaces’ technology-first approach to delivering future-ready commercial spaces.”
On skilling and employment, Naveen Tiwari, Co-Founder of Scrabble, emphasized: “The Budget’s strong focus on skilling, employment, and structural reforms underscores a fundamental shift from job creation alone to workforce readiness and productivity. Initiatives such as the Education-to-Employment Standing Committee, AI-led capacity building, and compliance simplification highlight the need for robust digital infrastructure that enables skills to be deployed, measured, and continuously upgraded. As enterprises expand across Tier II and Tier III cities and integrate into national logistics and industrial networks, digital transformation will be critical to ensuring compliance, efficiency, and scalability. The Budget’s emphasis on MSME support, professional enablers, and ease of doing business reinforces the role of digital systems as the backbone of India’s growth story; bridging policy intent with enterprise execution.”
In architecture and urban development, Parish S. Kapse, Co-Founder & Director of Team One Architects (TOA), stated: “The Union Budget 2026 reinforces India’s infrastructure-led urban growth agenda, with targeted amendments signalling a decisive shift towards city-scale development as a long-term economic driver. The announcement of over 350 reforms under India’s Reform Express, along with a strong push towards deregulation, is expected to significantly reduce compliance requirements and improve ease of execution. Initiatives aimed at boosting manufacturing across semiconductors, dedicated chemical parks, revival of 200 legacy industrial clusters, construction equipment, electrical systems, and container manufacturing reflect a forward-looking vision for India’s infrastructure and industrial future. These measures will directly enhance execution capabilities as cities grow denser and infrastructure complexity increases. In parallel, the Infrastructure Risk Guarantee Fund, along with sustained support for REITs, InVITs and institutions such as NIIF and NABFID, will strengthen capital confidence and enable more predictable infrastructure and commercial real estate development. The focused push on Tier-II and Tier-III cities, including the North East and temple towns, through City Economic Regions backed by ₹5,000 crore per region, further reinforces urban agglomerations aligned with local growth drivers. Coupled with rising public infrastructure investment and a sharper emphasis on utilities, mobility, and ESG-aligned mixed-use ecosystems, the Budget lays a strong foundation for Grade-A commercial development and the emergence of Tier-2 cities as credible, technology-driven destinations. For the Architecture and EPC industry, this convergence of policy, infrastructure, sustainability, and design presents a meaningful opportunity to shape resilient, future-ready urban environments at scale.”
Overall, the budget positions India for resilient, inclusive growth by blending heavy infrastructure investment with digital, skilling, and MSME-focused reforms, drawing praise from leaders in environmental engineering, tech, e-commerce, workspace design, skilling, and architecture.
Last Updated on Tuesday, February 3, 2026 12:44 pm by Startup Magazine Team
About The Author
