IT industry stakeholders present elaborate budget recommendations

Maintaining conducive business environment, healthy growth, overall development of the information technology (IT) industry and ease of doing business were the few key factors the NASSCOM highlighted in its budget recommendations to the finance ministry on Thursday.

"The government should commit towards offering a friction-less business environment and support to the IT-BPM (IT-business process management) industry, which is on the threshold of $100 billion exports this year," said National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) president R. Chandrashekhar.

"Being the sector that has put India on the global economic map, the government should leverage the expertise and talent from this industry to meet national development goals and to set milestones for the Indian economy," he added.

Against the backdrop of the rising protectionism, the need for a conducive domestic environment is all the more critical, the apex IT industry body said.

"Retrospective amendments and ambiguous provisions are a serious detriment and should be avoided," it said.

With respect to taxation on software products, NASSCOM emphasized the long pending issue of dual levies.

"While the Goods and Services Tax (GST) will hopefully address the dual levy issue, there is the need for intervention even under the current regime," it said, adding it has raised these issues with the High Level Committee and hopes that the proposed interim resolution is available till such time that GST is implemented.

As IT industry is the front runner in developing innovative products and solutions, NASSCOM stressed the need for research & development incentives, and suggested that the current scope of incentives be expanded to explicitly include IT and if the current 200 percent deduction is reduced, it should be at least 150 percent to support software product development efforts in the country.