The Narendra Modi Government’s pre-poll promise of heralding Acche Din, supplemented by the first full Budget of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, has lifted the entrepreneurial morale across the technology sector.
These fiscal measures become all the more significant as most of the industry had been reeling under the decade-long global recession woes. A focussed approach towards small businesses and start-ups in the Budget 2015-16 is being deciphered as measures to address their financial issues.
In line with the India Inc aspirations, the budget also gave required importance to facilitating the ease-ofdoing business, with due focus on promoting IT and Infrastructure Development. Reduction of tax rates on royalty and fee payable for technical services to 10 per cent from the previous 25 per cent is sure to boost the process of import of new technology and services into India.
Further, realising the growing importance of technology, the NDA Government has also included IT and Business Process Management (BPM) among the 25 focus sectors in the recently launched ‘Make in India’ mission. NASSCOM estimates that the revenue of the IT-BPM sector at US$119 billion grew by 12 per cent in 2014-15, with export market alone making up for almost $100 billion. The Economic Survey 2014-15 also identifies this sector as one that continues to be one of the largest employers in the country, directly employing nearly 35 lakh people.
Besides, thrust on the IT-driven Digital India campaign, exemption from Special Additional Duty (SAD) on all goods imported for use in the manufacture of electronic items and plan to establish Self- Employment and Talent Utilisation (SETU) as techno-financial incubation and facilitation programme have the potential to herald better times (Acche Din) for the industry in general and start-ups in particular, sooner than later.
The present issue of eGov magazine takes a closer look at the pre-poll promises made by the Modi Government and the supporting measures introduced in the Union Budget 2015-16 to fulfil those promises. It also tries to analyse whether the situation is conducive enough for the India Inc to expect better times in the current financial year.
This issue of the magazine also touches upon some other topics of the day, like smart cities and eCommerce, in addition to interviews of top government officers, select bankers and corporate sector stakeholders.
We are pleased to offer you yet another power-packed edition of eGov. Look forward to your valuable feedback.