The general elections of world's biggest democratic country are over now and Modi government (BJP) has registered its biggest victory so far. With the return Modi government for the next 5 years, the people of India are expecting them to provide a better standard of living, more jobs, cut inflation rates, and boost overall development in all areas. Along with this, the businessmen and industry people are looking forward to ease of doing business which will help them to grow further. In the previous tenure, Modi government brought Digital India that helped the ICT industry drastically and enhanced the consumption of ICT products across major verticals. In the 2nd inning of Modi as our PM, IT industry foresee huge growth during his next tenure. The industry leaders had expressed their views on the return of PM Modi. Telecom Today complied all such quotes in the story below:
Kuldeep Malhotra, Vice President, Sales, Konica Minolta Business Solutions India Pvt. Ltd. said, "The BJP-led NDA government has successfully secured its second consecutive term in office. This will ensure continuity in terms of policymaking. We can expect the government to maintain the reformative momentum that it created after the GST implementation in 2017 by offering greater flexibility to organisations to increase the ease of doing business in the country. In terms of foreign policy, the Modi government has always been proactive in expanding the scope of investment by international organizations in India. Foreign companies eyeing hyper-growth in the Indian market will be amongst those who benefit the most from this development. We can also expect increased FDI across industries to drive job growth and create more job opportunities for the country's youth – a prime area of focus for the Modi government."
"We congratulate the government for its re-election. This outcome would be a good motivation for the Indian ICT industry as the expectations would be nothing less than the high-impact campaigns like Smart Cities & Digital India. For long term benefits and wider access to the population, we hope there is a reassessment in the duties on emerging technology and products in the country. Since the government has been focused on business growth, we hope they introduce some support mechanism for the small businesses and enterprises to adopt the newer technologies and improve productivity" commented Vishal Parekh, Marketing Director, Kingston Technology India.
Avneet Singh Marwah, Director and CEO, Super Plastronics Pvt. Ltd, a Kodak brand Licensee added, "We pay homage to the mandate received towards world's largest democracy. Previous lustrum (five years) witnessed two major reforms including GST &Demonetisation, impacting our economy. Later, these long term policies' outcome was traced well in terms of stats. Indeed, this five-year extension for the government was required to draw long – term changes in terms of new projects and important policies for a full-fledged plan. Indicating the TV industry, in the past five years there has been a tremendous shift, both in terms of technology and the internet where the market share has gone up to 100% year-on-year".
Mr. Marwah continued, "Every change comes with its own consequences, having said that, one major drop was no action against the cash market in the TV industry by the government. This has resulted in a billion tax loss to the government. To suggest, the government should take some major steps to bring GST to 18% in all TV sets, enabling a promising growth."
"The triumph of Modi Govt. will benefit all sectors as it comes with a clear one party majority mandate for Governance. The Modi Govt. in its 2nd Term will be much more assertive and strong in decision making. The prime concern of the Govt. will be boost charge the lagging economy for the overall upliftment of Business sentiment as well as create new job opportunities. As such Modi Govt. is going to be very Strong in Global Perspective so it will have a lot of impact on import-export policies. We hope in the nutshell it is going to be a game changer" said Manoj Jain, Vice President, Microtek International Pvt. Ltd.
"The BJP lead NDA government once again got a decisive win in this Lok Sabha election. It is a historic win with a complete majority. This will put an impact on various sector and ICT will be one of them. In the last few years due to policy changes, ICT market has seen many ups and downs. Now the entire market is watching positively towards the government for their next step. Hope sooner or later the market will experience the upward movement" commented Mukesh Chaudhary, Country Head, India & SAARC, Rapoo.
Sudip De, Managing Director, Doel International Pvt. Ltd. said, "The new NDA government should focus on the following:
"Our Prime Minister's 'Digital India' Initiative has been a great driver of demand for hardware. This includes computer hardware, communications hardware and everything in between required to set up infrastructure for a more digitally enabled country. We are happy to see the continuation of this government as we can see more progress being made with this initiative and we are excited to see where this rise in demand takes us"concluded Himanshu Jain, Director, Acro Engineering.
K R Naik, Chairman, Digisol Systems added, "We have seen enormous growth opportunities in the past five years with the introduction of schemes like 'Make In India', 'Digital India' and 'Smart Cities'. With the continuation of the regime, we hope to see a new wave of transformation in the IT Networking Industry. We are excited about the opportunities coming in the next few years as supportive government regulations will help accelerate the business growth and would support companies like us who have been manufacturing products in India."
CP Gurnani, MD & CEO, Tech Mahindra stated, "Spearheading the world's largest democracy is no mean feat, so congratulations to the winning team. It is time for us to drive positive change by leveraging digital technologies and embolden India's collective dream of becoming a five trillion dollar economy. This also underscores the massive task that lies ahead of us – of shaping India's future. It's time for each one of us to step-up, collaborate and contribute towards the great India dream."
Suman Reddy, MD, Pegasystems India commented, "The government, through a range of forward-looking policies has a track record being a catalyst to the IT sector in India. This growth has, in turn increased the industry's share in the country's GDP. The results give us hope that the groundwork laid during the previous regime will translate to an improved policy environment and faster industry growth over the next 5 years. Every player in the industry is looking to operate in a competitive environment, find market opportunities to grow, and create jobs. Companies have seen the fruits of a favorable business climate created and are working towards the United goal of creating a trillion dollars of economic value through the digital economy by 2025. They also look forward to adequate levels of protection to maintain India's competitive advantage over other regional tech hubs and respect the interest of consumers using their services."
Subramanian NN, Director-Delivery and Co-Founder, Maveric Systems said, "Technology plays a major role in raising productivity and innovation. We sincerely believe that technology can become an important driver for our country's economic growth and social development. However, to begin with, government should push more on the impact of AI/IOT, data science and analytics network which is beneficial for the IT industry. Digitization and faster web will also continue to encourage the technology industry in India. Implementing these dealings can also improve access to data and will enable India's transformation into a data-driven economy. Another major challenge in our country is job creation and therefore this sector should be vigorously promoted in order to facilitate generation of employment and envision a digital world with plenty of options for the youth of tomorrow".
Ashutosh Harbola, CEO & Co-founder, Buzzoka said, "The re-elected government will have a lot more on their shoulder as new India has higher expectations this term. While digital India saw a mammoth growth in the last term, we expect the same to continue with higher investments in Digital India etc. Also, on the front of ease of doing business, the government took some major steps last term and we expect even simpler processes should be implemented. And finally, on the GST front, I would appeal the government to introduce simpler filing processes for startups and MSME's."
"A stable government at the center will ensure the successful and speedy implementation of more than 150 schemes and policies that the BJP government introduced for the startups. We applaud the NITI Aayog's plan to create an institutional framework for artificial intelligence (AI) in the country. We look forward to the next 5 years of the new government and are positive that it will continue its focus and support to the startup ecosystem; especially to give a push to adoption of AI in India" added Rashi Gupta, Co-founder & Chief Data Scientist, Rezo.AI
Neel Juriasingani, CEO & Co-founder, Datacultr said, "We welcome BJP again as the Government of India. In the past five years, the government has shown tremendous interest in the startup ecosystem of India and has made several policies to make it easier for entrepreneurs to launch new businesses and create jobs. Numerous startups have forayed into the various unexplored sectors and have given a new shape to the economy of India. Now, with BJP coming again, we foresee a multi-fold growth of the entire gamut of the startup network with all the stakeholders leveraging the change in the ecosystem. With the vision of moving towards Smart Cities, Fintech, AgriTech and Smart Industries, the government of India has been a great support for startups. "
"As a startup we are expecting a very smooth and feasible ecosystem from the coming government, so that startup like us run their business without any administrative obstacles and we welcome the new government, on behalf of all startups industry" stated Yogesh Bhatia, CEO, PreLoved Device.
"We welcome Modi government again, in the last 5 years government has launched more than 150 schemes and policies for the startup community interest. Further pushing the Indian youth to look at start-ups as a viable career option, the government launched Fund of Funds worth INR 10,000 crore whereas NITI Aayog launched the Atal Innovation Mission to foster innovation among budding entrepreneurs at the grassroots level. Now, with BJP coming in power again, we have a huge expectations ranging from Clarity on angel tax to tax exemptions on ESOPS, easing active compliance norms and state level funding & infrastructure support" said Kartik Agarwal, CEO, Staunch.
Bhavin Turakhia, CEO, Zeta & Flock added, ''in the last four years, Indian B2B startups have more than tripled. Our country is now taking giant strides towards becoming one of the fastest growing startup hubs globally. To make this a reality and accelerate their growth, the new Government of India must put in place measures such as training hubs for entrepreneurs across India to ease the flow of capital, regulatory compliance and more. Further, these hubs must act as one-stop knowledge, research and development centers so that startups can focus more on innovation and less on processes. Thus, acting as a catalyst or emerging startups across sectors''
''Currently, a start-up needs to follow the number of compliance laid down by various regulatory bodies as well as there is a knowledge gap because of multiple points of contact. While they are definitely necessary, they are onerous and costly to comply with. Compliance is expected with regards to Labour Law, MSME Registration, Investment, MCA Compliance as well as ones related to individual sectors. There should also be a consideration on hefty penalty in cases of non-compliance. The expectation from Government is to make the process simpler to comply with – A single clearance window – which ensures an end to end solution or procedure to be followed by a start-up that enables pro-active compliance as well as helps to avoid unnecessary costs'' commented Satyam Kumar, CEO & Co-Founder, LoanTap Financial Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Jitendra Chaturvedi, Director and Co-founder, Batooni Mobile Advertising stated, "The government had started smoothening the tax issues in startup funding. Continuation of the regime will hopefully hasten the change in the procedures and laws helping startup funding. BJP's known penchant for advertising is very good news for adtech startups".
"The rapid proliferation of new technologies such as the internet of things, artificial intelligence, connected devices & home automation, have provided FMEG companies tremendous opportunities to grow, flourish and expand into newer industry segments. Additionally, the past few years have seen the Government of India has a keen focus on the promotion of energy efficient solutions such as LED lighting. With the current Government all set for a second term in office, we hope that this trend continues as it would give further fillip not only to the manufacture of such products but also to the Government's 'Make in India' and 'Smart Cities' initiative" said Kishan Jain, Director, Goldmedal Electricals.
Juergen Hase, CEO, Unlimit commented, "The Indian start-up sector have already been ignited in the past five years with favorable policies around taxation, investments, ease of doing business, incubation, foreign capital, cross border, startup lobby groups, industry associations. The foundation of the ecosystem is already in place with India being the third largest hub for start-ups globally. Active government involvement is the need of the hour to resolve challenges such as unemployment, and funding for the growth of the industry and the economy at large. For start-ups to flourish it is imperative to create an environment that is conducive to physical, offline small businesses and hardware product firms operating locally. The new government should continue with initiatives such as Make in India and Digital India to aid the growth of the start-up industry and also work towards a digital economy by installing proportionate methods to tackle policy challenges".
"India is all set to become a USD 5 trillion economy. The new government should enable the creation of technology hubs and allied training centers across major cities and towns in India. In addition to bridging the skill gap of graduates, this will also accelerate the adoption of new-age technologies such as AI, data analytics and cloud. These disruptive technologies coupled with a young population can foster enhanced levels of growth through entrepreneurship and innovation and significantly augment India's competitive edge globally" added Javed Tapia, Founder & MD, Clover Infotech.
