Electronic India Inc. Reaction on Budget 2017-18

IESA Reaction on Budget 2017

IESA supports the Agenda of this year’s Budget 2017-18 – Transform, Energize & Clean TEC India presented by Finance minister Arun Jaitley.

By MN Vidyashankar

Start-up focus: Reaction to Government of India’s relief on tax benefit to start-ups for the next seven years

• Benefits to the start-ups will fillip in promoting the start-up ecosystem in India.

• With the Government’s announcement to promote women entrepreneurship, Dalits and all

  

  the sections of the society, there will be an increased boost in independent business and entrepreneurship in the country with more focus on the garment, textile and food processing.

• We will have an immense role to play along with MSMEs in making the Startup India Scheme initiative successful as 96% of the Indian companies will benefit from this. We are honoured with government’s trust on associations like IESA and look forward to work in tandem to realise this socially important goal.

Defence budget increased by about 5.8% to Rs 2, 74,000 crore

• An increase in the allocation of the defence budget will focus on the country’s Strategic Electronics ecosystem for greater self-reliance. The defence and aerospace sector in the country has seen considerable growth in recent years. The shift from buyer to manufacturer has to be made and this step will further boost the domestic ecosystem.

• Furthermore, with Web-based pension distribution system for defence and a central defence travel system, more strength will be given to the soldiers to book travel tickets online. A comprehensive web-based defence pension distribution system for defence pensioners has also been developed which we think will go a long way.

Skill development focus: Reaction on Government’s Transform, Energise, Clean India (TEC India).

• Government’s focus towards ‘Transform & Energise’ the youth through various programmes and incentives will give an impetus to entrepreneurial skills and move towards growing the ecosystem.

• The investments made by the Government in SWAYAM which will provide 350 online courses in IT and enable students to attend the courses virtually.

• These initiatives will give impetus to implementation of national programmes like Digital India, Make in India, Smart Cities as skilled workforce is at the core of the programs’ success, overall accelerating India’s economic development.

Amendment in Goods And Services Tax

• With GST implementation and finalising its recommendations on almost all the issues, we hope that both the industry and the public will be benefited.

• Goods and Services Tax would help in creating a unified Indian market, improve tax compliance and governance and boost investment and growth. Moreover, it will also complement the demonetisation process.

By K.Krishna Moorthy

Make in India and Manufacturing:

• Proposal on making India a global electronic manufacturing hub will boost manufacturing

  

  the electronic manufacturing market in the country.

• This in turn will focus on electronics manufacturing and plans to set up electronics clusters across various towns and cities.

• The huge investment in manufacturing will bring in more capacity creation within the country, though some amount of deterrence for blindly importing the products will happen simultaneously.

• Allocation and incentives of schemes like M-SIPS and EDF to Rs745 crore will reflect a strong commitment to promote local value additions in electronics manufacture.

• The overall tax reliefs given to start-ups and MSME’s will boost sustainable employment and the quality of start-ups in the design led manufacturing sector

Incentivize digital payments

• Glad to see the focus on digital payments picking up with the new proposal to mandate all Government receipts through digital means, beyond a prescribed limit.

• Moreover, it will encourage citizens, to go the cashless way for their personal spending.

• To promote a digital economy, the Government will launch two new schemes to promote the usage of BHIM: Referral Bonus Scheme for individuals and a Cashback Scheme for SME’s, MSME’s and entrepreneurs which will boost business transactions through e-payments. By revisiting corporate tax slabs, there is less incentive for tax evasion, and this will push the economy towards digital money.

• The CBD exemption given for Micropos terminals will enable digital payments, though there might be some immediate import of micropos terminals to meet the demands.

• If Digital Payment needs to really happen in the grassroots level then the country needs at least 5 lakh terminals in a very short period of time. We think this is a temporary step just to tie over the immediate demands of the micropause system that is required.

• There is enough capacity to manufacture terminal blocks but not enough products to meet the immediate demand.

Senior citizens; Adhaar & IT:

• The Government of India’s  focus on introducing Aadhaar based smart cards containing the health information to be introduced for senior citizens would require immense technological support and we have the capabilities as well.

• The entire transformation of citizenship identity to a uniform platform has brought lots of cheer in the IT eco system.

Next Page: Reaction on Union Budget, by Indian Electrical and Electronics Manufacturers’ Association (IEEMA)