The Union Budget for 2022-23 will be presented by the Finance Minister Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman on 1st February 2022. The year 2021 was better than year 2020 when pandemic halted major economic growth. Indian government has been quite fair in last one year by bringing policies and support for sectors which suffered a lot due to lockdown and bad market sentiments. The government in its attempt to support the businesses and people of the country this year too, might announce favourable policies and some reliefs. We all expect that Finance Minister’s announcement will boost the economy and bring new opportunities for various sectors to grow further in challenging times. The Indian ICT industry plays very important role in the growth of economy. The key leaders have shared their expectations from the upcoming Union Budget. Read below the opinion of key leaders-
“We Look Forward To The FM To Announce Favourable Policies & Guidelines to Secure Digital India Journey”
"The IT segment - especially the software and services, witnessed a major surge in the SMB segment after the global pandemic hit the world. The demand for endpoint protection tools (basic as well as advanced) has dramatically gained momentum after more users started relying online to meet their business as well as personal requirements.”
“Furthermore, mature and advanced technologies in the ENT segment such as AI, ML, Anti-Apt solutions and predictive technologies like Threat Intel have made headway in many segments and are redefining the patterns as to how cyber defence is looked at more from a business perspective than ever before. While the Information technology segment in India is fast maturing, it looks towards the budget and the government for favourable guidelines and reliefs. Due to the positive and progressive steps adopted by the government towards creating a more adaptable and functional digital economy, we very clearly see a surge in the services segment, wherein critical and strategic cyber defence services like Incident response, breach assessment, etc would become the need of the hour for the businesses across the length and breadth of the country. We look forward to the FM to announce favourable policies and guidelines that encourage the attention and adoption of businesses to pro-actively invest in cyber defence mechanisms and ensure safe and secure Digital India for the years ahead." - Dipesh Kaura, General Manager, Kaspersky (South Asia)
“We Expect The Upcoming Budget To Usher In A Balanced Combination Of Reforms And Regulations”
“We are hoping this Budget, the government announces steps to revitalize and reorganise the economy which has been impacted by the pandemic. This can be a positive start to encourage sustainable growth and push Digital Infrastructure- 5G, edge computing, and secured data management in India. The comprehensive program for the “development of sustainable semiconductor and display ecosystem in the country” will be a boost in making India a global hub of electronic system design and manufacturing but we would like to see reforms that will drive consumption and improve consumer demand. We are optimistic about the upcoming budget and expect it to usher in a balanced combination of reforms and regulations which will, in turn, boost Digital India, contributing positively to India’s growth story.” - Alok Dubey, CFO, Acer India
“Our Wish List Will Be More Focus on Make In India & Semiconductor Manufacturing Push”
“The Union Budget 2022 keeps our hopes high on some big announcements to boost the industry towards technological advancement. Ofcourse our wish list, which is of major entities in India, will be more focus on Make in India promotion and especially towards the semiconductor manufacturing push which is a need of the hour as well an opportunity for India. For this ofcourse the infrastructure needs to be developed and some rules need to be relaxed for MNC’s to invest more towards this goal. Also the introduction of 5G in Telecom will give a parallel boost to our industry as well, hope to see more news on budgetary support towards this tech.” - Bijoy Alaylo, Vice President – Channel Sales, TP-Link India Pvt. Ltd.
“We Are Hopeful Of The Government Increasing Spends On Cybersecurity Awareness And Training Initiatives”
“Over the last few years, we have seen exponential growth in cyberattacks. The ongoing pandemic and work from anywhere models have further increased the attack landscape for cybercriminals. In addition to this, organizations are facing cybersecurity resource crunch and stringent budgets. Our expectation from the Union Budget is on two aspects: cybersecurity skill gap and cybersecurity awareness. We are hopeful of the Government increasing spends on cybersecurity awareness and training initiatives to empower cybersecurity resources. Eventually, this focus will help to create employment as well as good defense against cybercriminals.” - Sunil Sharma, Managing Director Sales, Sophos India & SAARC
“The Government Should Introduce More Initiatives To Strengthen The Existing Digital Infrastructure”
“The pandemic has accelerated digital adoption across industries, making technology a necessity for organizations to survive and thrive in today’s evolving digital-first world. Almost every company has invested in new-age technologies, including AI, ML, big data, or IoT during the pandemic and shifted a major part of their operations online to continue serving customers and addressing their pain points at all levels. Among these tech advancements, touchless technology has taken center stage and is widely adopted by companies across all sectors, including office printing. In the wake of the pandemic, we saw innovations in this space such as smart-card authentication and biometrics, enabling users to give print commands to the device without touching it.”
“In sync with this vision, the government should introduce more initiatives to strengthen the existing digital infrastructure, which not only ensures seamless operations remotely or in a hybrid work environment but also provides additional security to users against data breaches. The upcoming budget should focus on augmenting data security and privacy to keep users and their devices safe from the evolving threat landscape. We at Konica Minolta strongly believe that technology will remain relevant in the coming days, and with the rapid ongoing digital transformations, agility, safety, and security will continue to play a pivotal role in the success of organizations.” - Kuldeep Malhotra, Dy. Managing Director, Sales & OP Marketing Division, Konica Minolta
"Government Should go for Immediate Import Substitution and Create Duty Differentials to Attract Domestic Manufacturing"
"This year’s budget will have high expectations from every section of the society, especially with the given adverse impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. We believe that India has the potential to become a global manufacturing hub thus, the government’s ‘Vocal for Local’ program needs a further push to boost the domestic industry through domestic consumption. We are expecting that in the upcoming budget Government should go for immediate import substitution and create duty differentials so as to attract domestic manufacturing as against trading of imported finished goods, this will really support IT hardware manufacturing in the country." - K. G. Prabhu, Group Chief Financial Officer, Smartlink Holdings Ltd.
“We Need to Have A Stable GST Tax Slab to Boost Indian Manufacturing and MSMEs Sectors”
“We need to have a stable GST tax slab to boost Indian manufacturing and MSMEs sectors. The products should not exceed the 18% slab, as they now need to encourage consumerism to be able to improve market sentiments. With this move, India can become the world’s third-biggest market for televisions, leading to an estimated growth of 15% in the market size, increasing to up to 16 million units annually. We would like to urge the government not to change custom duties as if now, as the industry is moving towards a stable condition.”
“We would like to congratulate the Government for introducing a $10 billion PLI scheme for display panels and semiconductor chips. We would also request Financial Minister to have timelines for these projects and this shouldn’t be restricted till the Memorandum of Understanding. This could be a pathbreaking move for the electronics sector. We have seen a 10 times growth in sea fright in the recent past, along with that timeline have increased two times. There is a big syndicate in this sector, which is causing this delay, and as a result, causing a huge loss to the economy. The Government needs to take strict measures to control the same. Government should consider lowering the tax rate on consumer electronics as this will encourage consumers to buy higher ASP products. This will also help in digital India, as consumers will opt for more tech products.” - Avneet Singh Marwah, Director and CEO, Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd
“Union Budget Should Offer Incentives For Manufacturers to Produce Energy-Efficient Products”
“We expect to see the Government taking reforms to drive consumption in order to give a boost to consumer durables industry and improve consumer demand. TVs, Refrigerators, washing machines have now become essential household goods and do not come under luxury goods. During the upcoming budget, the Government should bring down the taxes on such electronic items. Lowering the tax slab would help to offset the price pressure and increase demand for these goods thereby improving affordability among consumers thereby helping in deeper penetration of these goods into the market and giving a boost to the entire industry. As for consumers, more tax relaxation will increase their purchasing power. Also, Government should introduce futuristic reforms bringing 'ease of doing business' and making India a 'Global manufacturing hub' by promoting 'Make In India' aggressively.”
“Apart from this, the Union Budget should offer incentives for manufacturers to produce energy-efficient products which will be in line with the government’s sustainability agenda. Reduction in corporate tax and production linked incentives will help the industry tremendously. We have high expectations form the upcoming union budget. Especially after what our economy has gone through due to the pandemic, we expect the upcoming budget to be very much industry friendly and usher in positivity to India's consumption scenario.” - Pawan Kumar, CEO, Elista
The Government Should Encourage Rural Start-ups and Focus on Export
“We expect this budget to focus on Make in India and emphasise on local manufacturing of chips, drones and defence equipment. The government should encourage rural start-ups and focus on exports. We also expect higher allocation for Infrastructure and Defence in the budget” - Suresh Pansari, Co-founder & Director, RP tech India.
“We would like to see more investments pumped into the digital infrastructure”
“With the Union Budget coming up, we hope to see a stronger government focus on the gaming and digital transformation industry in the context of Atmanirbhar Bharat. India has the power to become a global gaming and e-sports hub creating huge employment opportunities. We expect the budget to further incentivize investments in digital technology, and particularly in the startup and scale-up ecosystem of India, which has been one of the brightest sectors of last year. This would give the already growing space a much-needed turbo charge.”
“We would further like to see the government come up with ways on how more domestic capital can be invested in new age sectors, therefore finding a way to normalise long-term capital gains tax for private equity of 20% and match it to the long-term capital gain for public markets which is currently at 10%. We would like to see more investments pumped into the digital infrastructure, as digital has been one of the strongest areas coming out of the pandemic and needs to be further strengthened. Looking forward to the budget this year and hoping for the best.” - Rajan Navani, VC & MD, JetSynthesys and President of Indian Digital Gaming Society (IDGS)
“The Government Must Ease Credit Disbursement to Small Businesses”
“To become Atmanirbhar Bharat, we expect the government to control prices of raw materials, which will help more MSMEs stay afloat during these challenging times. Besides, the government must reduce GST rates across sectors, increase the working capital limit for MSMEs, and ease credit disbursement to small businesses” - Rajesh Gupta, CTO, BUSY Accounting Software
“Budget 2022 Holds Great Significance For Small Businesses”
“The third wave of COVID-19 has again created a sense of uncertainty amongst small businesses in India, completely disrupting their recovery plans for 2022. While a majority of these micro, small and medium enterprises are working to overcome the new challenges, the sector requires constant support from the government to attain stability and ease of doing business. Budget 2022 thus holds great significance for small businesses that are striving to regain business momentum and attain greater financial profits this year. In addition to a robust policy for credit disbursement, there is a need for supportive measures for digital skilling, technology incubation and upgradation of the R&D ecosystem to facilitate the digital transition of such businesses in the new world order.” - Nikhil Arora, Vice President, and Managing Director, GoDaddy India
“We Want A Stronger Impetus For Reinventing The Digital India Campaign”
“This year, the government is expected to take a progressive step towards making India a hub for the manufacture and export of electronic devices. Consumer electronics product export incentives and low GST. At the same time, analysts expect import tariffs on certain components to continue to rise. I think it's time to go beyond that, we believe that the budget needs to focus more on value creation, including special incentives and subsidies for consumer electronics and component manufacturing. We all agree that India has strong goodwill in the world market. The country will have immense growth opportunities by taking advantage of innovative new technological aspects that facilitate the lives and governance of its citizens. We want a stronger impetus for reinventing the Digital India campaign with better reach, faster, more efficient technology, and a planned schedule.” - Mandeep Arora, Managing Director, UBON
“We Hope That The Upcoming Budget Will Have Provisions For Strengthening The Entire System”
The year 2021 was a challenging one for every sector due to the Pandemic situation. Hence, there're a lot of expectations from the Central Government about its new policies, and if they would announce sops for the industries to sustain. We hope that the upcoming budget will have provisions for strengthening the entire system and take progressive initiatives such as ‘Make in India’ & ‘Digital India’. In the upcoming budget, we are hopeful that the Government would continue extending its valuable support as initiated in the first term with the implementation of uniform GST, 'Make in India', besides offering a host of other initiatives that would help industries to come back to the platforms. Industries to develop newer technology in order to launch innovative products in order to compete with the current market scenario” - Lalit Arora, Co- Founder, VingaJoy
“We Expect The Government To Announce Some Specific Sops for EV Charging Infrastructure”
As the countdown for the union budget, 2022 has started, the EV industry expects it to be included in the priority sector lending list to boost e-mobility in India. We really appreciate multiple initiatives by the government to amend the faster adoption of electric vehicles. In the upcoming union budget, we expect the government to announce some specific sops, especially in the EV charging infrastructure segment. With the promotion of clean energy priority on the governments' agenda, we would welcome it if the government could encourage various green technology policies and incentives to promote sustainability among EV automakers.” - Amarjit Sidhu, Executive Director, Detel
“India Saw A Euphoric Rise In The Number Of Unicorns In 2021”
“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.” - Dhruvil Sanghvi, Founder & CEO, LogiNext
“Government Should Consider Promoting The Adoption Of Technologies Like RFID & Barcodes”
“With India’s supply chain costs being one of the highest in the world, the Government of India should consider promoting the adoption of technologies like RFID, barcodes, workflow automation, and traceability solutions that will empower the warehousing and transport & logistics sectors with real-time visibility and actionable insights and help them make smarter decisions swiftly. The same can be introduced by the public sector and hospitals for similar reasons. Through this, greater efficiency and results can be achieved, while lowering overall operating costs. As India continues its transition into the digital economy, we need to be equipped with the right technology to achieve digital transformation, which contributes to stronger economic growth and success for India”. - Rajnish Gupta, India and Sub-Continent Lead, Zebra Technologies
