Budget could have boosted "Make in India"

Kuldeep Malik, country head, corporate sales international, MediaTek India.

''We were expecting Financial Budget 2017 to offer incentives to start inflow towards design-led manufacturing in place of an assembly-led manufacturing ecosystem. But it seems the government is not yet convinced about adopting multiple-layered incentives for localisation while increasing duties on completely built units. The impact of policies seems to be neutral for mobile / tablet makers.

There has been a 2 per cent increase in duties levied on import of Printed circuit board assembly in India, which will reflect on one part of the manufacturing cycle with focus on assembly of mobile handsets.

On the other hand, providing attractive incentives for localisation of design and R&D capabilities would have bolstered the 'Make in India' initiative, and driven more handset makers to introduce design led manufacturing in India.

Post demonetization, the government seems totally weighed towards digital payment adoption. The government has decided to waive all duties (SAD / CVD, BCD) levied on mPOS systems, which in turn means that the POS devices will become cheaper and hence and aid adoption even at the grass root level, to grow exponentially in the coming year, helping drive forward the mobile payments ecosystem.

Considering the adoption of Aadhar-based payment government has also waived of duties from components such as IRIS scanner, fingerprint readers.