Union Budget 2018: Reactions from the IT Industry
IT News Online Staff
2018-02-02
Ramesh Mamgain, Area Vice President, India and SAARC Region, Commvault
Doubling allocations towards Digital India and enhancing the National Mission on Cyberspace Security sets the tone to protect the data of India Inc. and its citizens. Unique IDs for companies will definitely go a long way in contributing towards interest of the nation and increasing transparency by corporates. Commvault, with its global industry leading solutions, is also committed to partnering with the GoI and India Inc. in building a robust data protection framework.
Nikhil Arora, Vice-President and Managing Director, GoDaddy India
The budget this year focused towards 'Ease of Living' and 'Ease of doing Business' to strengthen agriculture, health, education, employment, MSME and infrastructure sectors. It is good to know that our economy is on course to achieve over 8 percent growth. The Government is recognizing the multi-faceted role played by the MSME sector towards encouraging the generation of self-employment with these tax relief and subsidies on custom duty. This year's budget also saw a huge allocation of funds to the MSME sector to help them get started and continue to grow, this allocation comes as a big relief for the sector badly in need for such encouragement. More support for MSME for NPAs and troubled enterprises and funding will indeed benefit the MSME sector at large and contribute to the Indian economy in the long run. Overall, the budget focuses on making positive structural reforms to drive India's growth story further.
Ajeet Khurana, Head, Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Committee of the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI)
The Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Committee (BACC) of the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) is happy that the Finance Minister has recognized the importance and popularity of cryptocurrency, and has chosen to talk about it on budget day. As far as the exact content of what he said, we are neutral-to-positive about it. However, we are pained to see his words being misinterpreted and misreported. Hence we are issuing this clarification, as well as our position.
Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister of India, said, "The Government does not consider cryptocurrencies legal tender or coin and will take all measures to eliminate use of these crypto-assets in financing illegitimate activities or as part of the payment system."
Looking closely that means:
(i) Cryptocurrencies are not legal tender or coin
(ii) The Government will take all measures to eliminate use of these crypto-assets in financing illegitimate activities
(iii) The Government will take all measures to eliminate use of these crypto-assets as part of the payment system
Here is what we understand, and where we stand on all of these:
(i) During question hour in Rajya Sabha on Jan 2, 2018, the Finance Minister had made the exact same point, where he stated that, "bitcoins or such cryptocurrencies are not legal tender". This has been the position taken by almost all Governments around the world, and we regard this statement quite neutrally. It is our understanding that only currency notes and coins are legal tender. That doesn't make any comment on the 'illegality' of other assets. It must be emphasized that gold, stocks, bonds, and other such assets are also not 'legal tender'. To extrapolate that to mean that such assets are 'illegal' is irresponsible.
(ii) Every citizen and business in this country should play their role in eliminating financing of illegitimate activities, regardless of whether such financing is done using legal tender, cryptocurrency, gold, or any other medium. We welcome this move by the Government, and want to wholeheartedly support the Government in this move. Our members already maintain a no-compromise approach to KYC (know your customer) and AML (anti money laundering) processes. We encourage the Government to work with our members, as we are committed to detect, report, and eliminate suspicious transactions in pretty much the same way as other institutions do. This will also generate confidence in our banking partners.
(iii) We understand the Government's position in wanting to eliminate the use of crypto-assets as part of the payment system. Since we are committed to support every regulation that the Government brings in, we will work with the Government to help it achieve its stated objective.
When a platform as significant as the Union Budget speech mentions cryptocurrencies, it is clear that the sector is coming of age. We welcome this positive development, and see it as an important milestone in the journey to policy-clarity and consumer-education.
Sapan Gupta, National Practice Head - Banking and Finance, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas
Capitalizing on the block chain technology could open new ways of securing peer-to-peer lending transactions, boosting trade finance, fintech and information repository sectors. By segregating the use of block chain from crypto-currencies reflects the Government's intention to use the technology in a gradual and safer manner, before it gets into concepts like replacing currencies.
In the current stressed situation of banks, capital markets can mitigate the negative effects by providing access of finance to corporations. RBI and SEBI shall now take steps to promote bond financing.
S. Sundararajan, Executive Director, i-exceed
The Government's initiative to accelerate research in artificial intelligence (AI) reinforces our belief that AI would revolutionize the way financial institutions and customers interact with each other. This would add a new dimension to the digital transformation of our economy and expedite our march towards Digital India.
With 5 lakh Wi-Fi hotspots proposed to provide data access to 5 crore people in rural areas, we can expect a surge in mobile Internet usage. This is a great step towards financial inclusion as more people from rural areas would now have access to digital products and services.
Rostow Ravanan, CEO, Mindtree
The budget balances the need for fiscal discipline against the political gains required in a pre-election year. We are happy to note the Government's interest and budget allocations to areas like Blockchain, AI and Digital. We are also interested to learn more about the largest social insurance scheme planned by the Government - this could be a large opportunity for using technology to deliver superior outcomes.
Vivek Agarwal, Co-founder, M-tech Informatics
We welcome the Budget 2018 by the Honorable Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The Union Budget 2018 is a growth oriented budget with enormous push for health, agriculture, education and infrastructure, which we believe will usher in healthy economic growth in the years to come. Speaking specifically of mobile phone industry, we are glad that our demand of increasing customs duty on mobile phone CBU [completely built units] imports to 20 percent from the existing 15 percent has been met. This will prevent dumping of phones in the Indian market, boost domestic manufacturing and provide a level playing field to home grown brands. The announcement is in line with the objectives of the Make in India initiative.
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