Budget expectations of the IT/ Telecom industry from Indian government

Advent of the biggest event of the year for which every individual of the country has been waiting; Budget 2015. It has been nine months of the highly stipulated “Good Governance” and now is the time to deliver, however now the debate on economy has changed its course from what needs to be done to bring India on growth track to when things will start moving and this is a consequential change. Budget 2015 will prove to be a noteworthy policy statement made in recent times.

Digital India Programme (DIP), the gargantuan programme conceived by Department of Electronics and Information technology will be the centre of attraction of this budget session. This consolidates ideas like providing high speed internet to all gram panchayats, digitally empower and literate the citizen and to digitise and redesign the government process and make them accessible. In order to do so the government relies heavily on the IT industry and the industry itself has high expectations from the government, and which seem to be delivered to them in form of Budget 2015. Sufficiently evident from statements made by Mr. Jaitley there will be further policies and regulatory initiatives to help create a large scale production at competitive prices and this has kept the hopes of related sector soaring high.

The government’s plan of making internet available to every corner of India including remote villages will prove to be a boon for the political campaign management companies as their software needs complete internet access to keep a constant track of voter data. The online ad campaign like mass Emails and addition of voter’s details via mobile app during door to door canvassing is only possible by strong internet connectivity.

The telecom industry has seen a heavy boom in its business in past several decades. Telecommunication is no doubt the life line of development and proves to be a vital part of business maintenance. Trai  in the past few week has made a giant leap in a bid to boost phone line connection in the country. There are substantial rate cuts to be expected and implemented soon. An increase in the adoption wireline network can work as an effective vehicle for delivery of high speed internet in the country. There are several specific demands of the telecom industry such as relaxed norms for spectrum trading and acquisition; more availability of spectrum; rationalisation of taxes; and building affordable device ecosystem to deliver the digital India vision.

Customer relationship is always maintained through constant contact and hassle-free communication which is only possible through telecommunication, SMSs, or internet connectivity. The rate cuts and rationalisation in taxes for the telecom industry will help support the growth of CRM solution provider companies as the relationship management depends on proper utilization of available communication resources to help boost the clients business.

To fulfil the farfetched “Digital India” vision, the government is totally pivoted on IT and telecom industry, however there are several industry specific expectation and reckonings and it is to be clarified on 28th Feb whether they will be met or not.