IT Sector Gives Thumbs Up To Budget 2016

The IT industry has largely reacted positively to the Union Budget 2016, mainly in the backdrop of the opportunities that would arise with the government’s digital India initiatives. Finance minister Arun Jaitley has bet big on technology as an enabler for growth.

“The finance minister’s speech had a strong emphasis on leveraging technology to transform India. The initiatives announced today combined with swift implementation of Digital India will help to digitize India and provide effective citizen services. We would urge the government to move forward at a swift pace and build an effective PPP model,” said R. Chandrashekhar, President of Nasscom.

Industry leaders are of the opinion that this budget, unlike any other, has not treated technology in isolation but integrated the effective use of technology across all the strategic imperatives in keeping with the intent of a Digital India. “Intel along with Nasscom launched the National Digital Literacy Mission in 2012 and we are very heartened to see the government’s continued commitment towards building technology relevance at the grass-roots by extending NDLM to 6 crore rural households,” said Debjani Ghosh, Vice President, Sales and Marketing Group and Managing Director for South Asia at Intel.

The scene in R&D though seems to be a dampener. “We are disappointed with announcement of the R&D incentives reducing because we believe that it is critical for India to be one of the most innovative countries in the world and this move could be detrimental in building India as an innovation hub,” added Ghosh.

Ravinder P Singh, Director – Solutions Strategy & Business Development, IoT, Smart Cities & Digitization, Dell India, said “…announcement of Digital Literacy Mission Scheme in rural areas is a key stepping stone to achieve next level of human capital transformation. India is going through a massive transformation with Smart Cities, Make in India and Digital India initiatives that will have far reaching impact in the growth of urban and rural India.”

The budget from a startup owners’ point of view is very positive as well having freed startups from paying tax on their profits for three years out of the first five years of existence, opined Sairee Chahal, co-founder, SHEROES.in, a startup focused on careers for women professionals. “Capital gains won’t have to be paid if the proceeds are invested in government-approved fund-of-funds or if an investor is a majority shareholder. This is bound to encourage angel investment and startup activity, thereby also creating more jobs.”

However, what you see may not be what you get as most startups won’t make money in the first three years!