Broadband body seeks phone subsidy

Mumbai: Broadband India Forum has asked for the continuation of incentives for domestic handset manufacturing as the present incentives would otherwise be subsumed with the GST when it is implemented.

The forum said since deployment of 4G networks along with affordability and indigenisation of smartphones will drive mobile broadband to the next level of penetration it is important to incentivise the local manufacturers to meet majority of the demand through domestic production.

“It is expected that the adoption of smartphone will go up to 688 million by 2020 as compared to 238 million in 2015,” said Bipin Sapra, tax partner, EY India said in a report for providing incentives to manufacturers.

Highlighting that mobiles are the preferred medium it suggested that Centre may go a step further and extend similar benefits to the component manufacturers which will reduce the cost of handsets and make manufacturers more competitive.

BIF president T.V. Ramachandran said that  Smartphone penetration is less than 30 per cent and an increase can happen through local manufacturing.