“Anything which is new will come only when a new government comes. This is more like what I had expected - a reappraisal of the last five years’ achievements. We had expected more. We eventually got disappointed (due) to our own hype,” Infosys Technologies co-chairman, Nandan Nilekani said.  “The global uncertainty and domestic freeze in policy is a ‘bit’ irritating. We have to navigate through this for four months.”

 “Today's announcements should have set the agenda for the next budget but I am disappointed that has not happened,” said Tata Consultancy Services executive director Phiroz Adi Vandrevala .  

Earlier in the day, while speaking to television news channels, Infosys Director (Human Resources), Mohandas Pai said: “The STPI clause needs to be extended for smaller companies because bigger  companies can move on to SEZs. There is going to be one more year of uncertainty and investments will be stalled. Till the new government is formed, investments will be on hold and wait and watch for them to extend it.” SPTIs are Software Technology Parks of India, while SEZs are Special Economic Zones.

NASSCOM says it will engage with the new Government on specific policy initiatives to sustain the industry’s growth. However, in the interim there is an urgent need to do away with the “inequities and multiplicities of taxes and procedural issues even before the new Government comes in.  It is important to free up the bandwidth of companies from these issues so that they are able to better manage the downturn and focus on business. This is also important to ensure India remains a preferred partner to do business in and with,” NASSCOM’s statement said.

“It was heartening to see the benefits that the Government is seeing in adopting IT, through projects like ‘Arrow’. To drive economic activity, the Government needs to expedite spending of these allocated funds particularly for IT projects, to stimulate the domestic market,” NASSCOM added. X