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Dr
Alok Bharadwaj, Senior Vice President Canon India
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The budget is a great opportunity to build investors' sentiments and
remove anomalies which is vital for growth. Announcement to make India
an attractive destination for manufacturing. Reforms like GST, DTC and
reforms in areas of agriculture, mining & removal of inverted
duty
structure etc will help boost the growth, job creation &
productivity.
Naresh Wadhwa, President & Country Manager, Cisco India and
SAARC
India has already made its
mark in the global technology map. However, in order to become a nation
to reckon with, there are a few basic hurdles it needs to overcome in
terms of broadband penetration, financial inclusion, education and
healthcare.
Empowering rural India is of utmost importance and the government needs
to do so by provisioning for broadband penetration and financial
inclusion. In fact, according to Indian Council for Research on
International Economic Relations, for every 10 per cent increase in
Internet and broadband connections, India could contribute up to USD 17
billion to the GDP. With this in view, the government is on the right
track with its allocations last year to connect over two lakh
Panchayats in three years. However, it will be necessary for the
government to take more steps in this direction.
Access to quality health care is another key to achieving rural
empowerment. The budget for this segment was raised marginally last
year and it would be good to have an allocation for rural health care
programs with provisions for technology that would help modernize this
sector to expand its reach through remote healthcare solutions and
telemedicine.
Furthermore, the government announced a big budget campaign
’Swabhimaan’ in the budget last year to promote
banking and provide services to about 20,000 villages. In order to meet
this goal, the budget this year too would need to make provisions
accordingly. This will also create opportunities for the IT and
infrastructure sectors to help banks reach the unbanked and bring the
bulk of the country’s population into the banking fold.
The industry has been facing a shortage in skilled workforce
for some time now. To bridge the industry and academia divide, it is
important for institutions to introduce more vocation oriented courses
at the plus two and degree levels and the government should take steps
to incentivize this. By 2025, a majority of our young population will
enter the workforce. To empower them to contribute meaningfully to the
economy, it is imperative for the government to ensure that the most
basic criterion – education – is met. Last year,
the union budget increased allocation for the education sector by 24%.
It included grants for leading institutes, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan,
post-matric and pre-matric scholarships etc. It is encouraging and
important to create a skilled workforce necessary for our
country’s growth, and hopefully this year’s budget
too has a similar allowance.
The setting up of the National Knowledge Network is also a significant
step in helping to take higher education in the country, to the next
level.
style="font-weight: bold;">Vsevolod Rozanov,
President and CEO MTS India
Equally significant is the fact that broadband penetration in India
stands at just 1% as against the wireless teledensity of 74%. With the
national broadband plan envisaging 160 million broadband connections
including 60 million wireless broadband connections by the year 2014.
There does exist a need to support this growth path. Levy of zero
service tax on internet and broadband service would certainly act as a
catalyst in this process.
Anil
Valluri, President, NetApp India
While administrative reforms, fiscal consolidation and inflation
management were the foremost concerns of the government last year, the
downward trajectory of the GDP curve should drive the government into
pushing big ticket reforms this year. Private industry in general will
have higher expectation than normal, and is hopeful of action on fronts
like further liberalization of the FDI policy, enhancing of
infrastructure spend and rollout out of the GST, among others.
Narendra
Nayak, Director Sales, CSC India
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I believe that the time is apt for the finance minister to display
positive intent in taking economic reforms and liberalization to the
next level. The world is undergoing a transition from an internet
economy to an ‘As- a -Service’ economy and for
India to realize its
full benefit, this budget should display adequate vision to achieve
last mile broadband connectivity on priority. It acts as a major
hindrance towards the country trying to maintain its leadership
position in the IT world. The government must also spend on upgrading
technology infrastructure in the country as well as invest heavily in
e-governance. This will serve many purposes. It will create demand
locally, bring efficiency and transparency to government, as well as
improve education through e-learning."
Saurabh
Srivastava, Chairman, CA Technologies
For India Inc. to be able to rise and flourish, it is important that
the Budget, as a statement of intent, expresses the long term proposal
for the economic stability besides radical reforms in taxation space,
which the industry today yearns for. Aspects like, Service tax refunds,
further adoption and expansion of IT, Duty corrections, strengthened
delivery mechanisms, fiscal balance, incentive for growth and clearing
all uncertainty pertaining to tax regime, need to be of prime focus.
With forward looking policy announcements & structural
corrections,
the 2012 budget could be a great opportunity window for finance
minister to inject both sentiments & substance to growth
renewal.
Jaswinder
S Ahuja, Corporate Vice President and MD, Cadence Design Systems
For the year 2012-2013, the Union Budget should address the challenges
of keeping the economic engine running in the midst of the global
uncertainties that can have a ripple effect in India. Closing of the
fiscal deficit without impacting the GDP growth rate; promotion of
inclusive growth initiatives are some of the key areas that we hope the
budget will highlight. To this effect, technology can play a big role
in helping India overcome infrastructure challenges as well as resource
deficiencies that we face.
For the semiconductor industry, the coming year will be characterized
by opportunities and challenges, especially given the push towards the
formation of a National Policy on Electronics to help India kick start
its nascent local manufacturing industry and become a global hub of
excellence for the design and production of electronic goods. To
encourage and stimulate the domestic industry and promoting locally
designed products, there is a need for tax exemptions and R&D
grants. Some of the pivotal issues that need to be addressed in the
2012-2013 Union Budget centre around semiconductor design, high-tech
manufacturing, encouraging pre-competitive research, and amendments to
tax and duty structures. Favorable policies addressing these areas will
support the domestic semiconductor industry to compete aggressively in
the global market, as well as encourage the growth of the local market.
There is need to push forward the much-needed reforms and pending
legislations. The Government needs to take urgent steps in the passing
of the long overdue Companies Bill. The early implementation of the
Direct Taxes Code and the Goods and Services Tax are also important
style="font-weight: bold;">Deepak Mehrotra, CEO,
Micromax Informatics
Currently, most of the devices sold in India are manufactured abroad,
largely due to the cost of sourcing efficiency and economies of scale.
There is an opportunity for a policy initiative to promote indigenous
manufacturing and India being a large market, can evolve as a
manufacturing hub. This would have the attendant benefit of spillover
growth in the adjacent electronic /component industries. We also expect
the government to promote m-commerce and m-banking to facilitate mobile
penetration further which can be a great boost up for the growth of the
country as well as for the consumers. We would welcome a move from
multiple vat rates to a uniform GST applicable across the country.
M
P Vijaykumar, Chief Financial Officer, Sify Technologies
While fiscal deficit has to be necessarily lower, significant
Government investment is a must towards education, hospitals and
infrastructure, which will trigger all round growth. The structural
reforms long overdue on DTC, GST and Company Law reforms should be
allowed to happen. This apart, tax administration has to be more
efficient and tax payer friendly, if industry has to see double digit
growth and also get more FDI.
Mohit Anand, MD, Belkin India Sub-continent;
The implementation of GST is a critical growth lever for the IT
industry we are hopeful that it will find a mention in this year's
budget, this would phase out major taxes like excise duty, VAT, service
tax, will be instrumental in unifying the markets in term of local
taxation, which will bring down overall cost of goods and
services.”
style="font-weight: bold;">Naveen Aggarwal,
Partner-Tax, KPMG
IT-ITES sector is struggling with increasing costs and global
uncertainty, keenly await relief in the forthcoming Budget.
The tax holiday for Software Technology Parks/ Export Oriented
Undertakings expired on 31 March 2011, while no extension was
considered in last year’s budget, the industry is still
lobbying for re-introduction of tax holiday especially for SMBs to cope
with pricing pressures and lower margins. Minimum Alternate Tax/
Dividend Distribution Tax exemption was withdrawn for Special Economic
Zones (SEZs) units last year, re-introduction of these exemptions would
be welcoming.
Vivekanand
Venugopal, VP& GM, India, Hitachi Data Systems
In today’s Information Economy, lack of information and
mismanagement of information are fundamental inhibitors to national
productivity and global competitiveness. The Government needs
to provide the necessary stimulus for business to build intelligent
information infrastructure to increase internal consumption and compete
in the Global Market place.
style="font-weight: bold;">Jagdish Mahapatra,
Managing Director, India and SAARC, McAfee
We hope the Minimum Alternate Tax which levied taxes on SEZs, severely
affecting foreign investments in India is discontinued or reduced
drastically. In this budget, we hope that the government enables more
options in tax, pension and similar activities through an online
platform to make it convenient for Indian citizens.
Finance Minister has to clearly demarcate the line between treating
software as goods or services. Hence relevant taxes can be imposed and
companies can comply with the appropriate laws. As the software
products industry is largely reliant on the channel ecosystem, the
government should consider reduction of TDS for software resellers from
the prevailing 10% to 1-2% to align with the corporate tax rate.
Sanjaya
Sharma, CEO TATA Interactive Systems
In the last budget the Government had increased allocation for
education by 24 per cent over the previous year. The National
Innovation Council was also set up to prepare road map for innovations
in India. India has proved time & again that we are a global
leader in technology and this can be the precise key to unlock and
unleash the power of our true potential. We believe that the Government
will continue to rigorously invest and promote investments in IT
infrastructure. This will be crucial in connecting even the outmost
schools which in turn will enable education as a fundamental growth
process for the country.”
Koji
Oda, Managing Director at NEC India
Government’s attention in the upcoming Union budget is
towards advanced healthcare facilities for the people is desirable. As
per the research, Government's long term vision of making quality
health care affordable, at least 50 per cent of country's population
should be covered by health insurance by 2020. Taking cue from this
revelation, we expect the process to be expedited largely with the help
of technology. Hence, an increased budgetary allocation will enable
healthcare companies to invest in IT and improve upon their service
efficiency.
Lakshman
Narayanaswamy, Co-founder & VP, Sanovi Technologies
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Investments in R&D are vital to a software product company, we
look forward to the finance minister giving incentives to Indian
product companies to help develop world class software products.
Kamesh
Ramamoorthy, COO, Ramco Systems
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Government should provide necessary infrastructure and tax exemptions
to encourage product development and R&D from India. Strong
focus on promoting Small and Medium Enterprises as they are the torch
bearers of the future economy. Initiatives such as Bringing back the
special subsidies given to SMEs for investments in IT will help in
faster adoption of IT among the SMEs; Easy loans, and better interest
rates. Single tax code that will ensure common tax structure for
software and commodities will help in substantial savings. This will
simplify the tax structure and make it easy to interpret for all.
style="font-weight: bold;">Rakesh Mistry Chief
Financial Officer Elitecore Technologies
Our key expectations from the Union Budget 2012-2013 are withdrawal of
the 20% Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) for SEZs; see implementation of
long-pending GST so that there is no ambiguity in tax structure and
also DTC, IFRS, New Company Bill. To reduce fiscal deficit, I
recommend a definitive policy on the phase wise reduction in
subsidy for diesel, LPG and fertilizers helping to lower
inflation, interest rates and prevent currency fluctuations in
Forex.
Finally, it would be great if individual tax limit is raised to Rs. 3
lakhs as that would go a long way in boosting economic activity.
S
Raman, Managing Director, LSI India
India is a leading destination for hardware design in the world, in
particular, design of semiconductor products.
India’s leadership in electronics design is getting global
recognition, I hope the new budget brings out specific policy measures
that augment India’s leadership and encourages an
entrepreneurial ecosystem in India.
“Inspite of the numerous challenges being faced by the Indian
telecom industry, the 2012 budget presents yet another opportunity for
the government to set some systemic elements right. From a global
perspective, the telecom industry in India attracts the highest tax of
23%. Looking in AGR terms, the industry generates revenues of approx.
Rs 122,000 crore, out of which Rs 28,000 crore is the approx. outflow
to the exchequer. This needs to be rationalized on a priority. The
telecom industry is clearly getting squeezed on account of such
outflows and what makes the situation all the more difficult is the
hesitation of banks to lend money to operators. All this naturally has
a deep impact on the roll out of voice and data services for the common
man, specially in the rural areas.
style="font-weight: bold;">Mahavir Chand, Managing
Director, GoDB Tech
Government has taken proactive steps to reduce the cost of the 3G
Handsets. For mobile productivity applications, we require penetration
of good (3G) mobile data connection. If Government could provide sops
to Telecom operators for providing 3G connectivity in Rural markets, it
would increase the penetration of Mobile productivity applications like
Education, Healthcare, Mgoverance.”