IT sector gets its share in budget

Bangalore: For India's IT sector which is still reeling from the recession, Pranab Mukherjee's Union Budget brought some cheer. The Finance Minister used technology and software words 14 times in his speech for massive automation and IT projects of the government.

Talking to Economic Times, Som Mittal, President of Nasscom said, "For the first time, there' a solid acknowledgement of the role of technology in the government's agenda. Technology will play a big, big role in implementation of projects." Adding to that Infosys CFO V Balakrishnan said, "A huge relief has also come in the form of the clarification on Section 10AA of the IT Act related to SEZs "Now, all SEZ profits from 2006 are exempt."

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However, people will now have to pay more while purchasing computer system, as the FM has increase two percent in excise duty. It means that if any computer system costs 25,000, a customer will have to pay 500 extra. Amar Babu, Managing Director, Lenovo India said, "As the government planned to hike two percent in excise duty, we will raise our prices after taking into consideration the fine print."

FM allocated 1,900 crore for the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and 100 crore addition to financial inclusion technology fund, which seeks to expand banking services to un serviced areas. Two more online income tax processing centres are on the anvil, apart from a host of IT projects. 1,133 crore has been allocated for computerization of commercial taxes in states.