Tuesday, August 23, 2016

National Software Policy!!! You may have Your Say

National Software Policy!!! You may have Your Say

The draft of the National Policy on Software Products is likely to be put up for public consultation within days, according to sources close to the concerned ministry. Earlier this month, Minister of State for Electronics and IT PP Chaudhary told the Lok Sabha that the government has drawn up the draft National Policy on Software Products.

Expectations from the policy to revamp the software product sector are high. The policy should be aimed at making a conducive environment for the sector, said Ravi Gururaj, who chairs the product council at Nasscom.

“While many of the startup ecosystem challenges are being addressed, a policy should specifically address startup needs of the IT sector -software products, cloud solutions, etc. Specific infrastructure needs like evaluation infrastructure, and sector focus such as IoT that DeitY is currently acting on could be enhanced,“ said Gururaj.

One of the main aims of the new policy is to help the software product industry increase its contribution to the economy.

“The government has drawn up the draft National Policy on Software Products with an aim to strengthen the software products ecosystem in the country and to give further impetus, so that software product sector contributes significantly in terms of business and employment,“ the minister had said, in his written reply to the Lok Sabha on August 10.
Citing data from software think tank iSPIRT (Indian Software Products Industry Round Table), Chaudhary said the revenue of software products industry in India at present is $6.1 billion. Out of this, $1.9 billion comes from exports.

Among the expectations from the policy is that of making the govern ment one of the significant customers of software products.

“The government has to become a market maker. The policy is also focused on making the government buy software products rather than software projects,“ said iSPIRT's Sharad Sharma.

However, Gururaj said the government should not be constrained by diktats on what they can procure.

The third significant point of the policy would be to help in creating more India-based software product companies instead of those domiciled abroad.

“The whole Startup India action plan is supposed to lead to Indiacentric innovative companies. The efforts of other departments should ideally supplement the programme and target sector-specific needs. The holistic execution of all the proposed programmes should ensure India is a very hospitable environment within which to grow your product company and help stem any flight to foreign jurisdictions,“ said Gururaj.

Most importantly, the policy aims to introduce a definition of software products in the government's lexicon, according to Sharma.

“Given the way the industry has developed in India, it's not surpri sing that there is no definition of software products in the government.Everything called “software“ is actually “software services“. The policy aims to correct this archaic situation.Only once this is corrected, can real work to address innumerable problems related to taxation for software products can get underway. This policy will give an impetus to streamline the taxation tangle around all digital goods where software products are the biggest victim,“ Sharma said.

The policy could shape India into a major SaaS leader.

Source | Economic Times | 23 August 2016

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Pralhad Jadhav
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