Budget Expectations: Cloud Hosting Providers, Data Centres Need Special Attention

This industry has gained momentum and realizing its potential, the government has rolled out the Startup India initiative. Considering the growth potential, there is a requirement for managed services. Special incentives given to companies would enable services to be offered at a reasonable price. Special schemes for data centers and cloud providers are required which will help promote and support the Digital India and Startup India initiatives.

Taxation Issues
-Data center and cloud companies should be declared under a special infrastructure category of national importance
-Benefits like introduction of tax breaks for 10 years and special power tariffs should be offered, considering these institutions run the Digital India and e-commerce backbone of India and need huge amount of capital investment
- Land should be be provided at special rates with faster clearances given to data centre building proposals
-Special subsidized provisions of high capacity power availability should be given to data centres
- Zero duty import of IT equipment for data center hosting and cloud companies should be ensured
- The government should promote investments on IT infrastructure which will motivate entrepreneurs to adopt new technologies
- Introduction of special monetary incentives be made for companies to invest in research and development

Subsidise Power Rates
Singapore and the US are preferred over India by startups owing to high costs associated with power in India. Subsidy in power is a must to bring down prices which will encourage and enable MNCs to set up or collocate with companies for doing business in India