Narendra Modi to hold meeting with ICT top bosses Friday

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5 Dariya News

New Delhi(IANS) , 16 Jan 2014

Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is all set to hold a closed door meeting with the top 25-30 executives of information technology and telecom companies here Friday during which they will deliberate on the challenges facing the industry.The list of prominent participants in the meeting include Google, IBM, Nokia, Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance ADA, Videocon, Alcatel Lucent, Dell, HP, Samsung, Tech Mahendra, Cisco and the Cellular Operators' Association of India. This close-door session would be part of the CyberMedia's ICT Awards function.Sources said the Indian Electronic and Semiconductor Association (IESA) would press for declaring the sector as a priority sector and making concessional credit available to entrepreneurs thereby enabling them to make globally competitive products and build to scale.It would also seek greater incentives to research and development leading to patents or products from India and would look forward to implementation of GST and abolition of value added tax.The telecom industry would pitch for measures to address the poor financial health of the industry by introducing a flat spectrum usage charge and reducing the Universal Service Obligation Fund levy.The thought leaders in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) arena would be asking for creating an open internet policy framework, relaxing the foreign direct investment policy for e-commerce, servicing tax holiday for internet businesses and reforming the IT Act.