Nasscom Welcomes Budget Focus on Innovation, Ease of Biz

New Delhi, Feb 1 (PTI) IT industry body Nasscom on Saturday welcomed the government's focus on fostering entrepreneurship and improving ease of doing business in the Union Budget 2025-26 and said "these are the good steps forward".

Nasscom President Rajesh Nambiar said the government's focus on innovation and improving ease of doing businesses reinforces its commitment of making India a global leader.

"The commitment to expanding safe harbour rules, both on the threshold as well as on the rate side is very much welcome. These are the good steps forward," he said.

The government has rationalised basic customs duty rates, slashing the number of levies to just eight, but has kept the effective duty rates on most items the same by adjusting cess to further ease of doing business.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman removed seven tariff rates in the 2025-26 Budget. These are in addition to the seven tariff rates removed in the 2023-24 Budget.

After this, there will only be eight remaining tariff rates, including a 'zero' rate to further ease of doing business.

In a pre-Budget interview with PTI, Nasscom had batted for tweaks in safe harbour rules and widening the scope for utilisation of SEZ reinvestment reserves in its Budget wishlist, while advocating for the creation of a central deep tech fund to bolster the startup ecosystem in India.

The Budget presentation on Saturday also saw the announcement of another round of fund of funds for startups scheme with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore to promote the growth of budding entrepreneurs.

"We welcome the finance minister's announcement on exploring the deep-tech fund. It's actually a fund of funds both an extension of the startup funds by another Rs 10,000 crore and also exploring new options for a separate deep tech fund of funds as well.

"So both of them align with Nasscom recommendation and will help scale deep-tech startups, potentially creating global champions while addressing India's key needs for whatever we wanted to do," Nambiar told PTI.

Further the Budget announced that a national framework will be formulated as guidance to states for promoting Global Capability Centres (GCCs) in emerging Tier-2 cities.

This will suggest measures for enhancing the availability of talent and infrastructure, building byelaw reforms, and mechanisms for collaboration with industry, Sitharaman said during her Budget speech.

"We have been working with the government on simplifying the international taxation regime overall, especially for our GCCs. Aligned with our own ask, the block assessment for transfer pricing, the block assessment for the GCCs is actually a significant step towards easing compliance for the tech multinationals and GCCs," Nambiar added.