Industrialists and IT entrepreneurs expect a lot in the form of a stimulus package with cut in corporate tax in the Union Budget for 2018-19.
They are lobbying for several major announcements for investment revival, job creation and giving a fresh impetus to agricultural growth and strengthening the start-up ecosystem.
AP Chambers of Commerce and Industry Federation president G. Sambasiva Rao told The Hindu that post-demonetisation and GST, the Centre should also impress upon the States to endorse its decision to accord infrastructure status to the logistics sector. He sought corporate tax slashed from 35 to 20%.
Atchutapuram Industries Association CEO M. Nagaraja said a redressal mechanism should be announced to address the problems faced by the Special Economic Zones.
Former Chairman and Managing Director of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited Y. Siva Sagar Rao said the ban imposed on capital investment by public sector steel manufacturers such as RINL and SAIL in modernisation should be lifted.
RINL, the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, has already completed 7.3 million tonne expansion with an investment of ₹16,300 crore. “With a huge land bank, it still has the potential to increase its capacity to 16 million tonne,” he said, adding only further capacity addition by SAIL and RINL would help achieve India’s target of 300 million tonne production capacity envisaged in National Steel Policy by 2030.
CII zonal chairman and Vijayanagar Group of Industries executive vice-chairman D.T. Raju opined that after doing badly in the first three quarters due to demonetisation and GST, agriculture processing sector had started doing well in last quarter. With GST implementation getting stabilised, the industry was expecting incentives for introducing new technologies to raise yield from agriculture and encouraging value addition and food processing industries.
Rushikonda IT Park Association vice-president O. Naresh Kumar said the IT industry would grow if more incentives were offered to strengthen the startup ecosystem. He said the industry as such was expecting at least 5% cut in corporate tax, change in income tax slab rates, encouragement to digital transactions, slash in bank lending rates and special incentives for exports to transform Visakhapatnam into a Fintech Valley.
He wanted slash in cost of power to IT units, more incentives for green/solar power and increased depreciation allowance, big push for electric cars with lower duties making them more affordable and more budget for electronic manufacturing clusters, more seats with grant of ₹1 lakh per seat under India BPO Promotion Scheme launched by Software Technology Parks of India for tier 2 cities to create new jobs.
Mr. Naresh Kumar also sought cut in cost of computers by lowering taxes, reduction in GST rates for IT industry and sops for import substitution of software in a big way under ‘Make in India’ programme.
