The Union Budget 2026-27, set to be presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1, 2026, arrives at a pivotal moment for India’s economy. As the nation advances toward its Viksit Bharat vision, industry leaders from diverse sectors are sharing their pre-budget expectations, highlighting key policy interventions needed to drive inclusive growth, financial inclusion, manufacturing, skilling, healthcare, and consumer demand.
These insights from experts underscore priorities like robust regulatory frameworks, stable funding, incentives for innovation, and targeted support for emerging and traditional sectors. Below are curated pre-budget expectations from prominent voices across microfinance, food processing, education and skilling, consumer durables, and healthcare.
Microfinance Sector Seeks Policy Boost for Financial Inclusion
The microfinance industry, serving nearly 30 crore low-income individuals, has shown signs of recovery with improved credit discipline. Portfolio at Risk (1–90 days) for RBI-regulated entities dropped from 5.3% in December 2024 to 2.4% by December 2025, with nearly 96% of borrowers within MFIN guardrails.
Dr. Alok Misra, CEO & Director, Microfinance Industry Network (MFIN), emphasized: “The microfinance sector touching lives of nearly 30 crore low income people needs policy support in the form of robust KYC framework for accurate borrower verification and responsible credit reporting. In light of SC judgement restricting Aadhaar use, the issue needs to be addressed through solutions such as Aadhaar last-four-digit storage or tokenisation. The other area requiring policy support is availability of stable funding mechanism. High dependence of NBFC-MFIs on bank funding leads to sudden drying up of funds and affects financial inclusion, like seen for last one year. This has resulted in nearly 50 lakh clients going out of formal finance fold.
Other than that, at a macro level, the sector has shown tangible improvement in credit discipline… We remain hopeful for an early announcement on the proposed credit guarantee scheme for microfinance, which will further strengthen lender confidence and start a virtuous cycle for the sector.”
Food Processing and FMCG Sector Calls for MSME Support and Rural Boost
The packaged food industry looks to the budget to enhance competitiveness through simplified regulations and infrastructure upgrades.
Bipin Hadvani, Founder, Chairman, and Managing Director, Gopal Snacks Ltd., stated: “The Budget is an opportunity to strengthen India’s food processing and manufacturing ecosystem. Continued support for MSMEs, simplified GST structures and easier access to capital would help companies scale. Incentives for food processing, packaging innovation and supply-chain infrastructure, including warehousing and logistics, can improve competitiveness and reduce costs. Measures that boost rural incomes and consumer spending will directly benefit the packaged food sector. A stable policy framework that encourages investment, innovation and job creation in the FMCG value chain is the need of the hour.”
Skilling and AVGC-XR Sector Pushes for Industry-Aligned Education
With India’s focus on the animation, visual effects, gaming, comics, and extended reality (AVGC-XR) sectors, as well as the creator economy, skilling emerges as a strategic priority.
Mr. Sandip Weling, Whole-time Director and Chief Business Officer – Global Retail, Aptech Limited, noted: “The Government’s focus on India’s AVGC- XR sectors and Creator’s economy reflects a clear recognition of talent, training & upskilling as strategic growth drivers in India’s journey towards Viksit Bharat. Policy initiatives aimed at strengthening skilling, infrastructure, and ecosystem development should create meaningful pathways for youth to participate in high-value creative and technology-led careers.
Over the last 4 decades, our training brands at Aptech are deeply engaged in creative education. During this time, we have witnessed growing interest to pursue creative careers and industry alignment across animation, VFX, gaming, digital content creation, beauty & wellness and other creative sectors… We believe that long-term impact is driven by industry-aligned curriculum, continuous evolution with technology, public-private-community collaborations, and a strong focus on employability. To sustain and drive this momentum, continued policy support for vocational and industry-aligned education, sustained industry-academia collaborative platforms, and targeted incentives for homegrown talent and startups will be crucial.”
Consumer Durables and Electronics Sector Demands Duty Rationalization
Amid India’s push to become a manufacturing hub, the sector seeks measures to deepen localization and global integration.
Mr. Tadashi Chiba, Managing Director & CEO, Panasonic Life Solutions India, highlighted: “The Union Budget 2026–27 comes at a time when India’s economic momentum remains strong, with the country poised to become the world’s fourth-largest economy. Continued emphasis on manufacturing-led growth through initiatives such as PLI and the Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme (ECMS), alongside investments in infrastructure, logistics efficiency, and support for R&D and design-led manufacturing, will be critical…
The consumer durables sector looks forward to policy measures that further strengthen domestic manufacturing and stimulate consumer demand. Rationalisation of customs and GST duties on key components, including compressors, and addressing inverted duty structures will improve the cost competitiveness of locally manufactured appliances and electronics.”
Healthcare Sector Advocates Focus on NCDs and Integrative Care
With rising lifestyle diseases, healthcare experts call for a comprehensive approach emphasizing prevention, data, and education.
Dr. Ravindra Mehta, Founder, Vaayu Chest and Sleep Speciality Clinic Bangalore, outlined: “What the healthcare sector needs in 2026 has significant unique aspects. Our current problems reflect the focus of what we should be putting resources on and it can be divided into current issues and futuristic requirement. Current issues, clearly lifestyle diseases and non-communicable diseases, especially respiratory and cardiovascular at an all-time high…
The second thing is wellness and illness need to be integrated for all NCDs… The third is we need to strengthen our documentation and data with robust EMRs… And fourth is research [and] Higher level education… this summarizes the four pillars i would talk about in short focus on the current requirement of lifestyle diseases non-communicable diseases especially respiratory and cardiovascular strengthen the primary and secondary care setup make the care outpatient based so that they can be screened well and avoid hospitalization, documentation and data with trending using AI tools if required to be able to predict trajectories and improve overall outcomes, integrative care, and lastly appropriate research and education focus to execute all of the above.”
As the Union Budget 2026 approaches, these expectations reflect a shared call for policies that balance immediate challenges with long-term ambitions, fostering inclusive, sustainable growth across India’s key sectors. Stakeholders await announcements that could catalyze investment, innovation, and job creation while addressing funding stability, regulatory hurdles, and consumer needs.
