Telecom Budget 2014: Mobile industry welcomes

Indian telecom industry – though disappointed because of poor sops in the Budget 2014 – tried to paint rosy picture by welcoming Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s steps to take the country to the next level.

Main demands of COAI, Assocham, GSMA, etc. were simplification of tax, infrastructure status, guidance of spectrum allocation, etc.

IT industry body Nasscom today welcomed the announcements on a pan India digital initiative, funding for start-ups, district level incubator network and leveraging technology for good governance are welcome steps.

Budget telecom

Cisco President Sales (India and SAARC) Dinesh Malkani

Networking vendor Cisco said the announcement will give the firm an opportunity to play a deeper role in India’s transformation. Its President Sales (India and SAARC) Dinesh Malkani said Cisco has worked on over 100 projects globally and is optimistic about working in India as well.

Nasscom President R Chandrasekhar

Government has addressed many key concerns raised by us on transfer pricing issues. The APA rollback, usage of multi-year data for benchmarking and among others should help to improve the business environment in the country.

TCS CEO and Managing Director N Chandrasekaran

TCS CEO and Managing Director N Chandrasekaran said the government has strongly signaled that one will see lot more reforms across sectors shortly.

Sanjay Kapoor, chairman, Micromax

Given the current situation, budget creation was an arduous task by any standards! The Finance Minister has made pragmatic choices around available resources and has articulated a road map towards reducing the fiscal deficit and fueling economic growth. While all of us hope he achieves the ambitious target of containing the fiscal deficit, executing it seems very challenging.

His focus on giving fillip to the infrastructure seems exhaustive and he has rightfully protected the common man’s interest in his first budget. While we welcome his stand on retrospective tax policy and intent to finalize GST this year, the current Government has the potential and mandate to take a stronger stance on subsidy and policy.

Syed Safawi, CEO of Viom Networks  

The government’s focus on digital drive through broadband connectivity at village level by way of allocating Rs. 500 crore and an additional Rs. 100 crore towards governance improvement is in line with the National Optical Fiber Network project that will eventually connect 2,50,000 gram panchayats.

The 400,000 telecom towers across the country can act as conduit for delivery of high-bandwidth digital connectivity through a hub and spoke model that can deliver a wide range of citizen services. The Rs 500 crore set aside for National Rural Internet and Technology Mission will usher-in a new phase of digital empowerment for our rural community.

At the same time, we were expecting further clarity on the infrastructure status that has been granted to the tower sector. This status indicates that towers are a national priority for creating pan-India digital connectivity backbone.

M P Vijay Kumar, CFO, Sify Technologies 

The Government has been very practical in ensuring continuity and making some socially important schemes productive. They acknowledge that banks need to be capitalized on priority without which, industry credit needs cannot be met. There is a huge emphasis all through the budget proposals on PPP.

Effective governance will result in successful PPP facilitated infrastructure growth. This might also give an impetus to the Smart Cities plan; because eventually these cities would require utilities and connectivity. There might be a hidden gem in the Rs 10,000 crore for venture capitalist fund for encouraging start-ups, a fantastic push for entrepreneurship. The fiscal deficit of below 3 percent for next year is highly welcome.

Koichiro Koide, MD, NEC India

The budget depicts the government’s effort in promoting the use of new technology and integration of technology across sectors.

We welcome government’s decisions of allocating Rs. 7,060 crore for development of 100 smart cities and modernization of satellite towns in the country, and an additional allocation of Rs. 3000 crore towards modernization of police departments.

The commitment to develop e-visa facilities at nine airports, and encouraging departments and ministries to be integrated through e-platform by the end of this year further indicates the government’s intent to adopt and promote new technology for better governance. Moreover, resource allocation towards Technology Development Fund and plans to take broadband connectivity pan-India will benefit the sector tremendously.

Neel Ratan, executive director, Government and Public Sector, PwC India

Although actual creation for 100 new cities will require large financial outlays however the current budget allocation is a step in the right direction.

Since smart city concept, on the whole, is a nascent development hence it will be prudent for the stakeholders to take insights from the planners of the few smart city initiatives like GIFT, DMIC and Naya Raipur. Conceptualising and developing new cities is a time taking process therefore this announcement will give the required thrust to fast track the planning of new cities.

Sandeep Ladda, India Technology leader, PwC India

Liberalisation of FDI in eCommerce sector will provide much-needed certainty to foreign players and to a sector that has the promise to provide increased commerce and generate employment in the country. This will also provide boost to the sector and create healthy competition so as to benefit all the constituents in the ecosystem – consumers, government, eCommerce players, and retailers in general.

Arup Roy, research director, Gartner India 

From industry perspective, the policies that would have major positive impact on the domestic IT uptake are: Digital India program; Good Governance; and one hundred smart cities program. Also, FDI cap increase in defense and insurance sector is a huge positive and has direct bearing on IT industry. This budget has also set aside funding for adding new top-notch educational institutions such as the IITs and IIMs in various cities, which is likely to have a long term impact on generating technical and management talent.

Edgar Dias, regional director, India at Brocade

The smart cities and digital India program of the government will ultimately create an economic value for the country by aiming to increase employability and reducing immigration. Good to see empowerment of the rural areas for businesses to flourish for a speedy economic growth. The measures to boost domestic manufacturing sectors, revive SEZs, support start-ups and set up new industrial clusters are all initiatives towards creating a progressive and advanced India.

Hemant M Joshi, partner, Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP on Telecom, Media and Technology

The budget offers exciting opportunities to TMT sectors. GST roadmap,which states that GST will be implemented by end of year, would result in multiple layers of taxation and also avoid litigations. The budget encourages local manufacturing of electronics products.Although there are few negative aspects such as imposing 10 percent customs duty on specific telecom products and service tax on mobile and online advertising, overall the budget provides positive picture.

Vivek Varshney, vice president & global head Telecom Practice at UST Global

We feel that the new government has presented a progressive budget, which will help in creating an investor friendly environment and attract more foreign and domestic investment in the telecom sector.

Creation of rural broadband vision will allow telecom companies to be a part of inclusive growth and improve the penetration of technologies to rural households, thereby improving the living standards of the citizens. Government earmarking Rs 7,060 crore in this financial year for developing 100 smart cities in the country would also help create communication infrastructure.

TelecomLead News Team
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