Digitisation and digital transformation have been buzz words over the last two years. While much has already been done, and India has made tremendous progress in the area, there is still a long way to go before we can call ourselves a truly Digital India. Ahead of the Union Budget 2022 the Indian tech industry shares their wish list from the government, as well as emphasized on the need to incentivize digital transformation.
- Bhavin Turakhia, Founder and CEO of Nova (Flock and Titan): The Union Budget should accelerate the growth of the digital economy by making it easier for businesses to invest in tools and technology that are crucial to their growth. The government can spur innovation in India by creating policies that incentivize technology product exports and encourage startups to make in India for the world.
- Puneet Gupta, Managing Director & Vice President, NetApp India: Following two years of economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic, and amidst the third COVID-19 wave, I am expecting that this year’s Union Budget will be a pragmatic one. There is an urgent need for the Government of India to continue its focus on infrastructure spending to boost the economy and increase employment opportunities. It will be great to see the Union Budget allocate funds toward incentivizing the use of emerging deep technologies like artificial intelligence, intelligent automation, blockchain, augmented / virtual reality etc., among businesses. Today, businesses across verticals are generating large amounts of data, which when harnessed through the use of new age technologies can be better leveraged to solve challenges faced by citizens. Promoting digitization is the need of the hour, and while we have made significant progress in this area in the last few years, we still have a long way to go. At this juncture, incentives, tax benefits, and provisions for optimization of cloud services can greatly help in building a truly ‘Digital India.
- Niraj Hutheesing-Founder and Managing Director, Cygnet Infotech: The Union Budget in India is always eagerly awaited by everyone, from corporates to taxpayers, with all hopes attached to having simplified compliances. In the wake of the third Covid wave, there is a certain expectation in terms of rebates and relief from the Finance Ministry on Indirect and Direct taxes. Stimulus packages and tax exemption policies designed for the COVID impacted era would help revitalize the economy. Moreover, the duration of compensation cess ends in June 2022, hence it would be great if the government could look at providing an extension on this by six months or a year. The Ministry of Finance may have some surprises in their bags for the GST regime specifically from a sectoral perspective, hence as a leading industry player we are looking forward to this. In order to provide a fillip to business growth the government is also expected to introduce financial aid to build a strong digital infrastructure for MSMEs and startups. This will help further strengthen organizations, enabling them to grow and thrive in today’s remote work environment.
- Dhruvil Sanghvi, Founder & CEO, LogiNext: India saw a euphoric rise in the number of unicorns in 2021, adding 33 in a year making it one of the fastest growing technology startup ecosystems globally. This growth has been on the back of overall improvement in ease of doing business, and this should continue to remain an ongoing focus and priority. Within the logistics space, there has been a massive disruption led by a major increase in last mile deliveries. Additionally, as Make-in-India along with the national freight corridors gains momentum, this is going to further increase demand for logistics. All of this necessitates building infrastructure capabilities that are future ready. We can achieve this with the right focus on digitizing processes and making international trade easier, which would go a long way in elevating India’s position in the global technology and logistics arena.
- Vishwakumara Kayargadde, Co-Founder and COO, Saankhya Labs: When it comes to Electronics System Design and Manufacturing, we as a country have a huge potential in becoming a global hub. The recent semiconductor-focused Performance Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme announced by the government has been a major boost for the ecosystem. The Design Linked Incentives (DLI) which is another element linked to the scheme has been beneficial for the design and fabless companies. From a Union Budget perspective, we are definitely hopeful of an MSME-centric budget from the Finance Ministry which will help in stabilizing growth and further boost this segment, especially during these challenging times caused by the ongoing pandemic. This will also help MSMEs working in the deep tech space to engage in product R&D and manufacturing. Further, in order to encourage the manufacturing of indigenously designed products, the government should also look at relaxing tax burdens, and provide tax exemptions in areas such as customs duty.
