New Delhi: Terming the Budget as "digitally empowering", IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today said that technology-backed initiatives announced today will help India become a more transparent economy.

The Budget has proposed a slew of initiatives for digitisation including expansion of optical fibre network, launch of `Digi Gaon' initiative aimed at providing telemedicine, education and skills through use of technology, and new schemes to promote the use of mobile app BHIM.

In a bid to push digital payments, the Budget has also proposed duty exemption on POS machines and Iris readers. "There is a big digital push in this Budget ... From expanding the optical fibre support system to Digi Gaon ... to using digital connect in a big way for taking 50,000 gram panchayats out of poverty," Prasad told PTI.

He added that the Budget proposals are transformational and designed to make India a transparent economy. "It is a very transformational Budget designed to make India a transparent economy, rewarding the compliant and penalising the deviant," he said.

Highlighting the underlying thrust of technology on programmes across-the-board including those relating to rural India, the Minister said, "rural also has to become a part of the digital transformation". "The real aspiration now lies in the rural economy of India, which is waiting to be tapped for extraordinary growth," he said.

"It is a transformational, inclusive budget, digitally empowering Budget, designed to make India an honest country," he added.