Saturday, June 28, 2014: There’s a good news coming for the domestic set top box manufacturers. According to reports, government is working to reduce the tax burden on the domestic set top box manufacturers from the existing 12-14 per cent to a mere 4 per cent. If this happens, it is be a great push to the indigenous STB production.
India would require an estimated 110 million STBs in the next six months to complete the digitization process of cable services. I&B minister Prakash Javadekar chaired a meeting recently, where it was decided that STBs will be declared as the ‘telecom network equipment’. This will help the domestic manufacturers avail the tax exemptions available to other telecom equipment. It will eventually bring down VAT from 12-14 per cent to 4 per cent. Sources quoted in a Times Of India report said, “This would help domestic manufacturers to provide competitive prices to consumers as against imported STBs. While the price difference between the imported STB and a domestic one may be between Rs 100-150 it significantly impacts margins when the cable operator is buying in bulk.”
During the meeting, Javadekar met the representatives from DTH operators, STB manufacturers and officials from the ministries of finance, commerce, telecom, department of electronics and IT, MSME, commerce and TRAI to discuss issues including VAT/CST and long term financing.
