ICT ministry recommends tax extn by 3 years under STPI

CHENNAI: The Union ministry for information and communication technology (ICT), has recommended extension of tax rebates under the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) scheme for another three years. "We have made our recommendations. Now, it is up to the finance ministry to take a decision on this," said Union ICT minister A Raja in Chennai on Friday. He was speaking at Connect 09 organised by the confederation of Indian industry (CII) and the State owned Elcot under the theme, " Resurgence of the Indian ICT sector..

The recommendations made by the ICT ministry are under consideration for cabinet approval. The STPI scheme, initiated by the central government in 1995, provided a host of sops and tax rebates for companies engaged in software exports, for a period of ten years. The scheme ended with a sunset clause in 2009.

Further, the minister announced that the 3G auctions are scheduled to begin by December 2010. "The pre-bid meetings are scheduled to begin by the 12th of October," he said.

The ICT ministry has received proposals from 15 companies to set up semiconductor fabrication industries, of which it has given in-principle approval to eight proposals. They amount to a total investment of Rs.70,000 crore. "We have decided that the government will provide 20% of the investment for such proposals in the semiconductor sector," Mr.Raja said.

He added that such decisions about the ICT sector will have to be taken jointly by the central and state governments. "There is presently no role for state governments in ICT policy, but each state has been doing its bit to attract investments in this sector," he said. "So, I believe that the subject should be brought under the concurrent list from the central list ."

Tamil Nadu minister for information technology, Poongothai Aladi Aruna said that the state government is determined to take the IT revolution to tier-II cities, townships and villages. "We have spent about Rs 540 crore to create IT infrastructure in tier-II cities such as Coimbatore, Trichy, Tirunelveli, Madurai, Hosur and Salem," she said. The government has plans to create 5440 community service centres (CSCs) so that there will be one such centre for every three panchayats. Currently, there are 2000 CSCs that are set to be operational.