Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said the Indian economy has emerged as one of the fastest growing economies in the world with its gross domestic product (GDP) growth accelerated at 7.3 percent in 2014-15 compared to 6.9 percent growth in 2013-14 and 5.1 percent in 2012-13, indicating that the economy is firmly on the path of economic revival.
The Finance Minister was making the opening remarks during his fourth Pre-Budget Consultative Meeting with the representatives of the Information Technology (IT) - both hardware and software - Sector here.
Highlighting the contribution and importance of the IT Sector, the minister said the Government's 'Make in India' programme included the electronic systems and IT and BPM (Business Process Management) sectors among 25 key sectors.
He said that the Governments recognises this sector's potential and the IT sector is a key pillar in various flagship initiatives such as 'Digital India', 'Make in India', 'Skill India' as well as 'Start-up India' among others.
The participants said manufacturing would be a major driving force of our economic growth, and they would be able to achieve the committed target of creation of job opportunities.
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Various suggestions were received during the consultative meeting, while major recommendations were to continue with measures to facilitate the exports, facilitating ease of doing business, measures for simplifying and rationalising tax procedures.
Other suggestions included the provision of Place of Effective Management (POEM) to be deferred by couple of years as this short period can be a hurdle for industrial growth. There was also suggestion that the scope of POEM need to be rationalised and made applicable to overseas shell companies. It was suggested that GST be implemented at the earliest.
On the proposal of sunset clause in case of Special Economic Zone (SEZ) companies, the tax relief to the eligible development activities and the sales activities by a SEZ unit may be extended till March 2019, as it will be unfair to deny the tax benefits to such SEZ developers, who have planned large investments in setting-up SEZ infrastructure.
Other suggestions were reduction of corporate tax, specific time-bound policy to revive the mobile industry, incentive to pollution free industries and vehicles, TRIPS Plus (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights ) commitment need to be relooked, directive to make all State and Inter-State duties and procedures online among others. There is also need to create duty differential benefits for Indian (IT hardware) manufacturers especially in case of mobile and tablets.
It was also suggested to reduce Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) and utilisation period under MAT be increased from 10 to 15 years.
Along with the Finance Minister, the Pre-Budget Consultative Meeting with the representatives of IT (Hardware & Software) Sector was also attended among others by R.N. Watal, Finance Secretary Shaktikanta Das, Secretary, DEA, Dr. Hasmukh Adhia, Revenue Secretary Anjuli Chib Duggal, Secretary, Financial Services, Dr. Arvind Subramanian, Chief Economic Adviser (CEA).
The representatives of the IT (hardware and software) Sector present during the meeting included Ramadas Kamath, Infosys; P.V.Srinivasan, WIPRO; Anil Chanana, CFO, HCL; Pauroos D Karkaria, TCS; R. Chandrashekhar, Chief Economist, NASSCOM; Nisha Tompson, Founder, Datameet; Vinod Sharma, Chairman, Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council; Nitin Kunkolienker, Vice President, Manufactures Association for Information Technology (IT); Rajoo Goel, ELCINA Electronic Industries Association of India; Hari Om Rai, Co-Chairman Task Force on Mobile Phone Manufacturing; Suraj Saharan Ajit Pai, COO, Delhivery; Sumandro, the Centre for Internet and Society; and Vikas Jain, Member, Task Force on Mobile Phone Manufacturing among others.
