The Budget 2014 – presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley – offers lots of hopes to all including the Indian telecom industry. The annual exercise does not have any strong measures to get an increase in our daily income and control inflation that will reflect in mobile operators’ income.
The strong exemption was in tax incentives to several crores of salaried employees and businessmen in India. Salaried class can save Rs 40,000. Will they be able to spend this saving on connected devices or voice calls or data plans? Will the Budget 2014 – first by Prime Minister Narendra Modi – offer enough income increase to rural class? Will 100 percent of the investments to boost India’s infrastructure go to projects? Will there be further delays in project execution? The Budget does not say NO.
Today’s Budget lacks time frame for executing the vision of the BJP government. Will the government take action against bureaucrats and private companies if they are not delivering? Will there be quality guidance?
If telecom operators are unable to generate additional income, the country’s mobile industry will not move ahead. Fight among operators, lack of regulatory support and transparency, long term plans, tax issues, etc. will continue to hurt the system. Usually, India’s Budget does not give answer to such issues. But the mood of the industry is different. They are trying to welcome the first Budget by Modi.
The Budget avoids long term demands such as simplification of tax, promises on spectrum allocation, infrastructure status, strong domestic manufacturing policy, etc.
What is positive?
There are some positive measures if you consider long-term plans of the finance minister. For instance, the government today earmarked more than Rs 8,000 crore to integrate technology across sectors so as to connect rural India via the Internet and increase transparency in its functioning.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley proposed schemes like setting up smart cities, taking internet to rural areas, to promoting start-ups and virtual classrooms in the social media-savvy government’s efforts to bridge the digital divide.
The minister proposed an allocation of Rs 7,060 crore in the current fiscal for developing 100 smart cities.
The BJP government did not offer any special sops to an industry which will provide the the government with revenue of Rs 45,471 crore from communication services, including proceeds from three sets of spectrum frequencies and related charges in this financial year.
The estimated receipts from communication services in the Budget for 2014-15 presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today are higher than Rs 38,954 crore revenue projected in the interim budget earlier.
The receipts under the same head were Rs 40,847.06 crore in 2013-14, according to revised estimates for FY14.
Baburajan K
[email protected]
