The IT hardware body, Manufacturers’ Association of Information Technology (MAIT), has demanded five concessions in the upcoming Budget. These include elimination of inverted duty structures, reduction in excise duty on IT goods and improvement in the overall regulatory and business environment, reports CNBC-TV18’s Malvika Jain.
With an eye on PM Narendra Modi's Digital India and Make in India campaigns, MAIT, the association representing the over USD 13 billion Indian IT hardware manufacturing industry has sought elimination of inverted duty structure.
Says Amar Babu, President, MAIT: “Given the size of growth of electronics hardware manufacturing, it might end up being the largest importer for the country. So it's clearly an imperative to ensure that we are able to translate Make in India vision specifically for electronics sector manufacturing.”
Babu pointed to the existing inverted duty structure that he said made manufacturing less competitive than imports. “This is against the government’s vision of Make in India. The special additional duty and all the components have to be removed to ensure that we remove this inverted duty structure.”
MAIT has also sought that excise duty may be kept at 1 percent, wherein the manufacturer cannot avail any Cenvat credit and 12 percent excise duty wherein cenvat credit can be availed. Additionally, mait wants the government to give the Indian IT sector an export push.
“We need to provide impetus to IT hardware exports so while we need to manufacture for local domestic consumption it's important also to try and develop India as a manufacturing destination for exports,” he says.
“In terms of logistics, we are closest to Middle East and Africa and it's a very large growing market so how can we provide the right incentives to drive hardware exports out of the country which will further ensure that we achieve this net import target of the Digital India vision,” he adds.
To improve the overall business and regulatory environment, MAIT has recommended that the government should move towards the GST regime swiftly and the government should ease labour policies and speed up environment clearances.
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