Industry Expects Budget Will Support Growth Of Entrepreneurship & Innovation

On the eve of the forth coming India Budget 2014, Indian Inc across industries have voiced their opinions. Among them include: Natarajan, CEO & MD, Mindtree Limited and Nikhil Pathak, Vice President, Business & Strategy- IT Business India & SAARC, Schneider Electric India Pvt Ltd.

KK Natarajan, CEO & MD, Mindtree Limited says, "We are optimistic that the union budget will make room for changes on the policy level to enable greater participation and contribution from the industry. Making provisions for greater IT adoption in the government, manufacturing and private sector through incentivization, and streamlining the procurement process for technology products and services will be crucial.” 

He gone on to say that changes in income tax laws like discarding MAT on SEZ income, minimizing litigation on export turnover, and addressing royalty implication on software, both retrospective and on services, are also important. We expect that the budget will support the growth of entrepreneurship & innovation amongst Indian technology companies. The government should support the repositioning of India as an Innovation Hub and plan investment in rebranding and repositioning.

“Incentivizing expansion to Tier 2/3 cities, and supporting market development initiatives abroad for Indian technology products & services will help drive opportunities for balanced growth, employment, and improving overall competitiveness,” Natarajan adds.

Nikhil Pathak,  Vice President,  Business & Strategy- IT Business India & SAARC, Schneider Electric India Pvt Ltd says, “The Union Budget is an important indicator of government’s intent to fuel economic growth. We have a robust IT industry which is working on cutting edge technology and contributing significantly to the country’s GDP. The Budget should thus open up more sectors to IT and push aggressively for IT adoption across these industries. FDI opening up in different sectors is already good news and the IT sector needs to significantly leverage this. The Budget will also need to address the Indian infrastructure market that can witness investments primarily fuelled by key IT initiatives that include mobility, cloud and big data. ”