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With Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman set to present Budget 2026 on February 1, the prospects for economic policies are also widening. India is changing with changing times, as it is rapidly expanding unlike most economies across the globe, as it is being influenced by these factors; technological change, sustainability objectives and a competitive global market. In this respect, we can see a sprouting of discussions regarding the possible effect of the strengthening of the long term economic growth plan in India through Budget 2026.

The shared idea in a number of these arguments is how to build the pillars of the Indian economy, as well as to make them competitive on the international level. The economic growth is not defined by a single factor today, as it is a combination of numerous factors, including a skilled workforce, a robust financial ecosystem, and the capacities of companies. With the Budget 2026 just around the corner, experts are already being sought to discuss the way India should look at talent building and innovation financing, and how it is going to support the businesses to scale at both domestic and international levels.

Developing global talent preparedness

Talent and workforce preparedness become the kick-off point of sustainable growth. With the changing business models and integrating abroad becoming a regular occurrence, there is a greater interest in expanding the pool of workforce that transcends mechanical capabilities such as the ability to adapt and being exposed to international modalities of operation. Here the policy priorities of education, industry connections, budgetary assistance start to converge, and the discussion is thus brought nearer to the realities that a generation is facing a world where there is rapid change.

Founding President and Chancellor of ATLAS SkillTech University Dr Indu Shahani indicates that India is bringing close to 8-9 million youthful employees into the labor pool each year, education system must adapt to the global talent to prefer skills-based recruitment. Budget 2026 has to speed up the process of transforming India from a talent supplier into a talent hub around the world. This budget ought to finance three areas:

Being further supported, she says that at ATLAS SkillTech University, she observes how practical education generates confidence, flexibility and a global outlook - attributes employers appreciate when markets are considered. Greater attention to future-oriented skills and employer-qualified qualifications will enable young professionals to become not only job-ready but also future-ready in the whole world. India: Perhaps at scale, education and industry can both provide better talent pipelines to Indian businesses, and our young people can become competent enough to compete and win in the global market.

Capital markets financing innovation

Although the creation of future-ready workforce is an urgent issue, business innovation and scale are also influenced by the availability of the appropriate financing ecosystem. As the Union Budget 2026 is only slightly in the future, capital markets are being viewed not only as a source of finances but also as the strategic infrastructural component, which can drive the industrial transformation. In that view, Professor Trilochan Tripathy, Finance Area, XLRI Jamshedpur, indicated that the upcoming budget presents a job opportunity of the utmost importance. India, he says, is at a threshold juncture and Budget 2026-27 is likely to offer an occasion to make India capital markets strategic infrastructure, not simply to fund growth, but also to encourage innovation, sustainability, and technological domination. Our finance minister must put the capital market as a strategic infrastructure that will enable funding of innovation-oriented sectors like renewable energy, green hydrogen, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, robotics as well as defence to be more accessible. Having a sound regulatory direction and focused fiscal benefits can be used to create a strong ecosystem, where resources are allocated towards quantifiable economic, technological and environmental outcomes.

He also notes that carbon and climate-related derivatives such as exchange-traded carbon futures, emission swaps, and certified credit will assist industries in hedging the risks associated with their costs and investment in decarbonization in the long term. The green-finance instruments can be enhanced by a special Green and Strategic Capital Market Development Fund which will have seed capital and liquidity facilities.

Collectively, these tax breaks and credit-support options would provide startups and industries that create jobs with the comfort and financial leeway to expand in an economy that is rapidly changing. Although these concepts establish the strategic position of the capital market in the process of funding innovation and sustainability, their actual effect will be determined by how much they will assist the businesses on the ground level. This leads to the center point of policy influence and export competitiveness is established around the MSMEs.

Enhancing MSMEs and export competitiveness

Although capital markets determine the manner in which industries are funded to grow, the implementation of policies on the ground is evident in the case of India, in the MSME sector. Being one of the strongest economic pillars of the country, with few resources, but add value to creation of jobs, exportation and balanced development of the region. Although the MSME segment is resilient and adaptive, specific structural interventions would be necessary to enable them to grow bigger and maintain the new level of development.

Associate Professor Dr Sangeetha Gunasekar, Amrita School of Business, Amrita Vishwa Vidhyapeetham, Ettimadai, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, commented on the importance of MSMEs and noted that, MSMEs are the backbone of Indian economy as they contribute a good percentage of about 30 percent to GDP, provide employment to more than 110 million people (only second to agriculture) and also contribute to more than 50 percent of merchandise exports. Budget 2026 has to work harder to connect the MSME with the export sector by closing three major gaps to enable them to capture a larger portion of the global markets.

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