February 18 2016, 17.19 PM IST || Pocket News Alert
“The expectations ride high from all segments – consumers to corporates - for the Union Budget 2016 as this is the second full-fledged budget of the government. The government needs to demonstrate concrete actions to revive investment, increase growth and generate employment which will favorably impact the industry. We are hoping that the Government will unveil the Union Budget 2016-17 with a pragmatic recognition of the global macro-economic woes and the relative advantage that India enjoys in having its economic foundation and fundamentals right. The crying need is to accelerate policy initiatives with a thrust towards structural reforms. One of the primary things the government should do is to more widely adopt IT for citizen facing services in both the Centre and the State. The government must also roll out the much delayed Goods & Services Tax (GST), by taking the Opposition along, as it will boost economic growth significantly.
In this budget, the government should improve the Ease-of-Doing-Business quotient manifold by introducing friendly policies that are transparent and unambiguous so that its implementation is not fraught with confusing interpretations. Clearly there is need to build self-reliance in the import-heavy IT hardware sector which begs the need for a coherent push to encourage domestic manufacturing of IT hardware. Providing differential duty benefits to IT manufacturing will help ‘Make in India’ a reality for the IT sector, similar to how it has been correctly enabled for mobile phones and tablets. In order to boost the manufacturing sector the government should bring in policies that will enable India to be a hub of IT manufacturing, given the strategic geographical locational advantage that India has with Middle East and South-east Asian countries. This will give a huge boost to the ‘Make in India’ initiative supporting it with a well thought-out, rational and phased manufacturing program, and give the much needed boost for the entire ecosystem to grow exponentially. We hope this year's budget will create an enabling environment for Indian industry to realize its true growth potential.”
