Yet, sustainability advocates say that while energy transition and logistics decarbonisation are well-addressed, pollution control, climate adaptation, and broader environmental financing are less ambitious or lack sizable dedicated funding.
The budget also brings AI to the heart of agriculture by integrating ICAR (Indian Council of Agriculture Research) knowledge and agri‑startup insights to offer verified, contextual, and timely advisories to farmers. However, the real impact will accrue only from scaling to millions of farmers and steadily building the ecosystem to boost productivity and incomes.
Highlights
- ₹20,000 cr over 5 years for CCUS to cut emissions from hard-to-abate sectors like steel, cement, chemicals and power — a flagship climate mitigation investment.
- Continued duty exemptions on battery and solar components — including renewable manufacturing inputs and battery energy storage systems — to strengthen domestic clean energy ecosystems.
- Allocations for renewable energy expanded (e.g., rooftop solar under PM Surya Ghar-Muft Bijli Yojana raised).
- Dedicated freight corridors and expansion of national waterways to shift freight from road to lower-emission transport modes.
- Seven high-speed rail corridors proposed to support cleaner passenger mobility.
- Dedicated corridors and incentives for sustainable mining and processing of rare earths in several states to reduce import dependence and boost green tech supply chains.
- Urban Challenge Fund (~₹1 lakh cr) to finance climate-resilient and sustainable city infrastructure projects.
- Projects for water bodies (reservoirs) and fisheries value chains to support sustainable livelihoods.
- “Turtle Trails” and bird-watching nature tourism routes to encourage biodiversity protection with economic benefits.
- Public capital expenditure ~₹12.2 lakh cr with projects (water, sanitation, logistics, urban systems) that dovetail with sustainable development pipelines.
- Emphasis on skill and scale for sustainable development, per government leadership commentary.
- Clean transport and ecosystem-friendly logistics are also noted in state-level policy coverage.
- She Marts’ for women entrepreneurs will provide community-owned retail outlets, enabling women to expand their businesses at the grassroots level.
Editor’s Take
India’s Annual Budgets are known for grandiose announcements. An analysis of how announcements made in the last 5 years have translated into actual investments and ground level impact in the form of enhanced efficiencies, lower environmental impact, and growth of green jobs will help.
The ease of doing business is still cumbersome in India. It is more challenging for green startups and growth-stage ventures. While public investment announcements are impressive, the private sector has been playing a -wait-and-watch game for nearly a decade. There are a few big business houses that are investing in green projects, but they are doing so with public funds.
Masood Mallick, MD of ReSustainability, for industries engaged in recovering value from end-of-life materials, recognition of secondary resources as strategic assets was overdue.
He said, “The extension of duty exemptions for lithium-ion cell manufacturing in battery energy storage systems, and the rationalisation of excise duty on biogas-blended CNG, reflect a sophisticated understanding of how clean energy transition and circularity reinforce each other. These measures will unlock investment in recovery infrastructure and accelerate the shift from linear to circular industrial models.”
