"The finance minister has done well in increasing the infrastructure spend to exceed 10% of the GDP, abolishing FBT and eliminating the surcharge on personal taxes in the 2009-10 budget. This is already impacting the types of infrastructure projects that are being awarded and it is heartening to know that our nation is finally getting built. If our honorable union minister for Highways Shri. Kamal Nath has his way, we may even achieve 50% of his goal to build 20 kilometers of roadway every day! India’s chief economist and Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has done well to stress the importance of regular project monitoring of such large projects to ensure cost control, reduce delays and increase transparency of government spent to this order of magnitude. However, unless this committee becomes equipped with a policy to force contractors and Government agencies to report periodically and in a consistent format, this will not fly. In the United States, President Obama has passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) that sets a list of reporting guidelines that are mandatory for agencies and contractors working on government projects to account for spend and report progress. India should take a leaf out of this book, especially when we are spending an unprecedented amount of money on capital infrastructure. What a shame it would be if all of this spend is wasted on delayed projects that never see the light of day? Aurigo is a globally leading software company helping Government agencies and construction houses across the world streamline their project data and automate their monitoring systems to control costs and reduce delays. We are seeing a surge in these types of requirements from the private sector in India, and hope to see a similar demand from Government. The other point to piqué with the FM is that in last year’s budget he made no mention regards taxation on software products. Being a country largely known for low end services and given the thrust we need to have on fostering innovation and IP creation we expected the government to create a policy framework that encourages product companies driving innovation. I speak on behalf of all other product companies operating in India and strongly urge the FM to eliminate service tax on software products in order to facilitate lower costs of software automation and spur technology adoption in India. This has not been done and is a detrimental action for the country’s growth and a negative sign for software product business in India."Balaji Sreenivasan, CEO and founder, Aurigo Software Technologies
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