Big opportunity to promote Web

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: Internet is a critical technology. While India is experiencing high growth and expectations, we are far behind Brazil and China with respect to internet access and usage.

Without any doubt, proliferation of internet is important. Therefore, the Budget is a big opportunity for the government to promote internet in India. In my opinion, increased investment in infrastructure related to broadband access is the need of the hour. It is also seen that the prices of smartphones, which are used to access internet are very high. In my opinion, the government should reduce duty on import of mobile handsets.

With telecom operators focusing more on the rural market, the mobile subscriber base in India is set to exceed 771 million by 2013, growing at a CAGR of 14.3% in the same period from 452 million in 2009, says a recent study by research firm Gartner said. The mobile market penetration is projected to increase from 38.7 %in 2009 to 63.5 %in 2013.

A huge chunk of the growth comes from operators increasing their focus on the rural market, local consumer durables and electronic companies entering the domestic mobile handset segment, and lower handset prices.

I also feel that there should be a five-year moratorium on service tax for ecommerce providers. It is far more easy to sell products online compared to setting up a store. Therefore, the move will save them the cost of their shops and ultimately the consumers will benefit from it. This will in turn promote small business growth.

Similarly, there should be a moratorium of service tax on cybercafes. Cybercafes connect people and in our country, they need financial support to flourish. Increased number of cybercafes will provide us more clients for online advertising, which will be a big boost to our company’s revenue. I will also suggest relaxation of import duty on critical technology components for five years, which will brighten the prospects of internet in India.