Union Budget 2019- IT Veterans Expectations

Union Budget 2019 to be held on 1st Feb 2019. Different IT Honchos  has their set of expectations. We incorporated the expectations of numerous industry leaders. Lets have a look.

Shibu Paul, Regional Sales Director- APAC, Array Networks

“From this year’s budget we are expecting reduced duties on IT networking products. There should be a strong domestic manufacturing policy favoring global companies to invest more in India. The budget should reassess the preferential market access policy and ensure that honest tax paying citizens are given privilege and preference.”

M A Mannan, Country Manager - SAARC, Corsair

“With the implementation of the GST, the industry has flourished a lot; there has been a complete full stop for grey channel market or grey imports. The government is committed to the growth of manufacturing sector and the strides

made by ‘Digital India’, ‘Make in India’ initiatives. This evolving aspect of the IT industry brings in immense business opportunities, but requires a special attention for its optimal utilization. So, to further encourage the electronics

manufacturers and take these initiatives to next level government should roll out new schemes and incentives. Also, with the fast paced developments in the IT industry, changing consumer buying patterns, variable GST rates for the various sub-parts in consumer goods, the industry is going through a demand-supply-cost gap. Hence, to address these challenges, the current 18% GST bracket can be brought down to 4-8%, which will help the IT industry as well as the consumers.”

Rajendra Chitale, CFO, Crayon Software Experts India

“With initiatives like ‘Digital India’, ‘Make in India’ and ‘Personal Data Protection Bills’, Government has certainly put India on a Digital Innovation fast track. With Budget 2019, we require government to create policy frameworks that incentivize big businesses to invest in manufacturing locally in India. Further, we would also expect the Government to remove the day-today hurdles and obstacles faced in implementation of these initiatives. Government had provided for non-deduction of withholding tax on reselling of software licenses - primarily considering the very low margins in this trade and the fact that resellers are not making any changes to the licenses purchased from the OEMs. With the changes in technology - pure play software licenses are being replaced by a bundled package - Azure, Amazon web services, etc. (Together referred to as “Cloud Services”). However, the concept largely remains the same - Resellers are not making any changes to these bundled packages and the margins are also very low. Would urge the Government to come out with specific notification to extend the scope of the term “Software” as defined under NOTIFICATION No. 21/2012 S. O. 1323(E), DATED 13-6-2012. Another area on implementation is to remove the bureaucracy and speed up the process of refunds - on Income tax as well VAT/ Service tax refunds.”

Sonit Jain, CEO, GajShield Infotech

“We would like the budget this year to give a strong push to Make In India which may include larger tax exemption limit for employees working in companies which are manufacturing products locally in India. A strong push towards rural

e-infrastructure with added emphasis on security compliance and data protection would be beneficial. Implementing zero GST set-off for companies using SaaS application hosted outside India will enforce companies to setup data centers in India thus boosting jobs as well as infrastructure. Incentives should be given for making digital payments for the additional transparency they provide. This year’s budget should promote companies manufacturing IT products locally by giving them added advantage like tax exemption or incentive on IT exports.”

Rajaram Vidyavar, Director-Commercial, Netrack Enclosures

“Budget 2018 elevated country as a hub for ease of doing business. Also, the recent announcement of new SOPS for MSME sector that involves less and easy steps to access credit will surely boost the Indian MSME sector. The government is all set for Union Budget 2019 and there are lots of expectations from this session. We would like this budget to provide directions to key decisions expected to take place in IT and Manufacturing sectors. The industry is also anticipating revised schemes which will boost the ‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’ initiatives. Tax deductions on locally manufactured products and special packages for Indian manufacturing hubs will surely achieve zero imports by 2020, hence boosting Indian economy.”

Prashanth G J, CEO, TechnoBind

“I have many expectations from this budget and at the top of it is the Easy Availability of credit, especially to the MSMEs. The last 18 months have been tough with the banks tightening their lines and now in the last 6 months the NBFC scene has compounded the issue. MSMEs want easy availability of credit to sustain and grow their operations. The other expectation would be that the government would use the budget as a financial tool to boost the Digital India efforts and drive the adoption of Digitization right up to the SME. This will have a huge effect on the economy by not only increasing productivity but giving businesses a step forward to competing in today’s modern business environment.”

Rajarshi Bhattacharyya, Country Manager, SUSE

“Calls government to create policy frameworks that incentivize fresh investment and new business opportunities

to transform India into a global manufacturing hub. The Government’s vision of Digital India has come alive and is slowly bridging the digital divide. With initiates like ‘Digital India’, ‘Make in India’ and ‘Skill India’, the government has certainly put India on a Digital Innovation fast track. By 2019 Budget, we would require government to create policy frameworks that incentivize investments from big players in manufacturing locally in India. Creating transparency in Governance and reducing regulatory compliancesshould be taken into the consideration.”