Pre-budget quote by Javed Tapia, MD & CEO, Clover Infotech:

“The Indian IT services industry is at a watershed moment. It has strongly aligned itself to ride the global digital transformation wave. There is a huge demand for skilled talent in IT services and the budget should earmark funds to address this. A thriving IT services sector will not only augment exports but also fuel the growth of our consumption economy. The government must introduce favourable policies, tax benefits etc. for skilling manpower and provide much needed employment boost.  Enabling IT companies to strengthen India’s digital capabilities and train and employ human capital to seamlessly work on new-age digital technologies is the need of the hour.”

 Pre-budget quote by Bhavin Turakhia, CEO, Zeta & Flock:

‘’For the upcoming budget, two key areas to focus on are – technology and India’s salaried population.

India’s online economy has made significant strides, shifting from a largely ‘cash on delivery’ model to now clocking a massive number of online digital transaction. In the upcoming budget, an increased focus on giving better sops to build an infrastructure that can continue to empower individuals digitally will further boost our economy. Also, with technological disruption being key for startups’ growth today, we would urge the government to encourage investments in technology hubs that will help strengthen technologies such as AI, ML etc. The government must also work towards bringing in some respite to GST, by reducing the tax slab for technology services and products, encouraging the early adopter market to flourish.

For salaried employees, in the past few decades, we haven’t witnessed any increase in several allowances that are offered. For instance, the meal allowance is only ₹50 per day; while children education allowance has a limit of just ₹100 per month and the driver salary limit is only Rs 900 per month. It would be of great benefit for the salaried people employees if the Union Budget 2019 considers increasing the limit of such employee tax benefits.”

Pre-budget quote by Dr. Arun Singh, Lead Economist, Dun and Bradstreet:

The government’s commitment to support entrepreneurs could be evidenced in the form of credit guarantee schemes, easing of regulatory requirements for start-ups and time savvy technology introduced for tax compliance. In the Interim Budget, the government increased allocation to Interest Subvention Scheme for Incremental Credit to MSMEs by 25% over the previous year’s allocation. Given the current slowdown in MSME credit, it is expected that the government would announce further measures to improve the ease of access to finance for MSMEs.

• An increase in the target for lending under Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY) is anticipated. Either new schemes that provide collateral free loans of up to Rs 5 mn would be launched under PMMY or the existing ceiling of Rs 1 mn would be raised.
• There may be an increase in fund allocation for setting up new technology centers.
• Some measures to improve the welfare of small traders, such as establishment of National Traders’ Welfare Board, creation of a National Policy for Retail Trade and a scheme on the lines of Kisan credit card and providing merchant credit cards to registered merchants are also likely