With the NDA coming back to power, there are huge expectations from the Government. We present below some of these expectations
Dr Keshab Panda, CEO& Managing Director, L&T Technology Services
This election is a victory for Indian democracy and the people’s mandate. A stable and clear majority is always beneficial to business and international trade and commerce. As India builds up on its global position of being a leader in new-age innovations, it is the right time to leverage the country’s unique capabilities to serve as a best-in-class ER&D services destination. We can expect to see growing demand for technology expertise in several critical areas such as smart cities, connected healthcare and Electric Vehicle technologies, backed by the Government’s active policy framework. We foresee technology companies coming out with digital engineering solutions catering to all of these in the coming years
Rajan Navani, Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) National Council on Future Businesses and Artificial Intelligence and Vice Chairman and Managing Director, JetSynthesys
It is indeed exciting to welcome back the ‘Always Investible (AI)’ PM Modi. The citizens of India have invested their future, their hopes and aspirations for the next five years in him and I look forward to there being increased momentum in every aspect of economic development including a huge push to empower the people of India with jobs through entrepreneurship incentives and leveraging digital first technologies in every aspect of nation development
Sanjay Agarwal, Director and Co-Founder at Umbrella Infocare
We hope the new term brings with it a favourable policy framework for IT software and Hardware products manufacturing under Make in India. The government must also encourage big corporates to enter local manufacturing of IT equipment. This will replace high dependency on Import and boost employment and export. Secondly, we feel a flexible and reduced tax, legal, labour law compliance for IT startups will prove beneficial, as currently, compliance cost for small companies is very high. Thirdly, we expect the government to offer quick response to issues faced by new-age tech companies like Cloud, e-commerce, edu-tech, Fin-tech. Existing policies and laws do not cover rules for such new-age companies, leading to litigation and business loss. And finally, we have long been demanding rationalization of high TDS rate on re-sale of software services including cloud services, because it directly impacts growth of business and increases cost.
Bhavin Turakhia, CEO, Zeta & Flock
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 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
Satyam Kumar, CEO & Co-Founder, LoanTap Financial Technologies Pvt. Ltd
Currently, a start-up needs to follow 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 consideration on hefty penalty in cases of non-compliance.
Expectation from Government is to make process simpler to comply with – A single clearance window – which ensures 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
Javed Tapia, Founder, Slonkit
The current government has given a fillip to startups with initiatives such as Start-Up India which enables self-certification, rebate in filing patents, income tax exemptions, easier public procurement norms etc. I think the new government should further enhance the vibrant start-up ecosystem wherein startups can collaborate seamlessly and share knowledge and technical expertise. This will help India to leverage it’s entrepreneurial potential and become a hotbed of unicorn start-ups across different sectors
Saru Tumuluri, CEO, Veri5Digital
A big boost is anticipated for the Financial Inclusion and Fintech sector in the second term of the NDA government. Fintech will continue to be a sunrise sector and with more supportive government regulations will exhibit tremendous growth and innovation especially in the sachet size financial products. With our suite of onboarding & digital products (KYC, eSign, eNACH), Veri5Digital will have a very important part to play in this growth sector by helping BFSI maintain compliance and costs in the delivery of these sachet size solutions ”
Vineet Chaturvedi, Co-Founder, Edureka
These election results are a mandate of the aspirations of India’s youth and its young manpower and Technological progress is going to be the biggest asset for the country. We are confident that the current government will continue its progressive policies and by working closely with Industry and Training Organizations and we will have the talent to build the next Amazons, Alibabas and Facebooks of the world in India.
We believe that the applications of the future will be made-in India and for India. The Indian economy is growing at a very fast pace and corporations of the world do not want to miss out on this opportunity. To provide them with a relevant workforce, we highly recommend Skilling Allowance for all tax paying individuals. Such a rebate that rewards continuous learning will go a long way to create a workforce that can make India a skill powerhouse.”
Navtej Singh – CEO Digital Business, Hitachi Payment Services
It is our belief that the (new) government will take steps to further strengthen the fintech ecosystem in India. With the consumer in mind, the government should introduce regulations that are flexible in nature and benefit multiple stakeholders. While regulations like sandbox and ‘no-compromise’ approach towards safety will further drive innovation and security in the fintech space, a more market driven approach towards pricing, the timelines to implement the norms and flexibility would be equally important. The push towards more convenience, cost effectiveness and adoption of technology that make lives easier for every Indian citizen such as UPI, IMPS etc. should be the topmost priority
Himanshu Pujara – Managing Director, Euronet Services India Pvt. Ltd.
A right mix of policies, regulation and incentives are required to further the fintech space. The Government thus far has been extremely supportive by promoting the platform for real time and faster payments, creating an environment that has let to huge investments in the fintech space which has allowed mushrooming of several hundreds of start-ups who are enabling innovation. Going forward the Government has to ensure that policy and regulation have a coordinated run with industry requirements and innovation to foster creativity, new investments and secure growth of the sector
Pushkar Mukewar, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Drip Capital, a US-based trade finance firm
When the new government sets out its agenda, we hope the slew of measures announced to improve credit access for MSMEs will be put into action. So far, much of the policy support to fintech has been on the retail side, that is, digital payments. What is now needed is a big push to promote fintech in areas such as MSME lending and export finance, to help solve the credit gap problem for the MSME sector. Additionally, if PSUs are indeed mandated to ensure that 25% of their purchases are from MSMEs, this will give the sector some much-needed impetus. We also hope that the wrinkles in GST will be ironed out in the next few years
Alok Mittal, Founder & CEO, Indifi Technologies
The vision of India Stack has become well-defined and distinct in its scope and financial services should continue to be a huge area of operations. We expect the new government to define concrete steps to mobilize access to financial services and empower the fintech companies that facilitate them. For instance, extending credit guarantee schemes such as MUDRA and facilitating better data access to alternate lending companies can help in bolstering the impact and reach of these initiatives. Doing so can ensure a step closer to financial inclusion and high growth potential for MSMEs in India.
The government’s intentions are in the right place. Over the next five years, we can expect the government to introduce more well-evaluated and specific purpose driven initiatives to further boost the Indian startup ecosystem. Streamlined regulatory mechanisms, reduced tax rates, enhanced tax exemptions can be expected. The future definitely looks bright for the digital ecosystem, the MSMEs, or the startups, all fostering a better economy during the next five years
Subramanian NN, Director-Delivery and Co-Founder, Maveric Systems
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
Deepak Gupta, CTO & Co-founder, LoginRadius
The new government should focus on data privacy and the security of Indian identities. As India will have 50 billion identities to manage in the next 5 years including identities being also managed via IoT, AI and other technological platforms. The Government should provide emphasis and regulate data privacy with the usage of advanced platforms that provide user consent management, best in class user experience and data security
Vipul Singh, CEO and Co-founder, Aarav Unmanned Systems
I expect the new government to operationalize the drone regulations at the highest priority, Speed up the enforcement measures on the cases of delayed MSME payments and strengthen the 50 min MSME loan portal which is not functioning properly
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