Cellular companies welcome budget

BANGALORE: The telecom industry has generally welcomed the Union budget. Finance minister Yashwant Sinha has given some boost to this industry. But again, he is not clear in his statement. In his speech, he has mentioned only about cellular and cabling industry. Reducing the duties on telecom equipment will result in drastic price reduction on handsets and telecom hardwares. But Sinha has not touched anything on Datacom sector.

Here are some of the comments from the industry:

 

BhartiBT CEO K. Ganesh:

This is a positive budget for Telecom segment. The duty on tele-equipments has slashed. The minister has not mentioned any thing specific for VSAT industry but there will be a reduction of duties from 40 percent to 35 percent for VSAT industry also. This is a positive move.

JT Mobiles Ltd. Chief Operating Officer Deepak Gulati:

We are very happy about the budget. This budget will help the cellular industry. The reduction of duties on telecom equipment will result in the reduction of prices on the handsets. The cost reduction will be around Rs 1000 to Rs 1500.

Bangalore Labs CEO V. Natarajan:

My feeling is, finance minister has done a good job and balancing act in the budget. Today Telecom infrastructure in the country is poor, by reducing the duties on telecom segment, finance minister has encouraged this industry. At the same time he has boosted hardware segment by reducing duties on various components. He taxed the matured software segment, which is farely doing well in the country. In the coming days, I can see a lot of activities in Telecom sector. Lot of companies will come into this segment and local manufacturers will be benefited.

Director- Sales and Marketing T.G. Ramesh:

Fundamentally this budget is not clear. We need more information. If we take the IT sector, by reducing the duties on few components doesn’t make much difference. I feel that government would have waited one more year for liberalizing VC funding in the country and at the same time it has not liberalized the ceiling for overseas acquisition. The only positive about the budget is finance minister has reduced the duties on cellular industry and this will lead into the right direction. But overall, I feel budget is not clear and needs more transparency.

Krone Communications CEO Bala K. Chandran:

Overall this Budget is not up to the expectations. This budget has failed to control the fiscal deficit and this is the highest in last couple of years. If you take the segment wise, IT and Telecom has the boom time. Reduction of duties will certainly help the local manufacturer. In the cabling segment, I don’t see new entrants. Existing industry has already crowded. It is good signal that atlast government is encouraging cellular industry.