Budget 2017 expected to have incentives for the makers of ATMs and PoS machines

To promote digital payments, the upcoming budget may offer incentives to companies which manufacture equipment like PoS machines and micro ATMs. According to sources, the government may cut or eliminate excise duty on manufacturing of micro ATMs, fingerprint readers, biometric cards and PIN cards. Further, import duty may also be reduced on components used in the manufacturing of micro ATMs, they said, adding the excise duty exemption given by the government on these machines may be further extended. The government has announced excise duty exemptions till March 31, 2017. The ‘Committee on Digital Payments’, headed by former finance secretary Ratan P Watal, had suggested incentives to encourage digital payments in India. It had suggested withdrawal of all charges levied by government departments and utilities on digital payments and bear the cost of such transactions and mandate government departments and agencies to provide an option to consumers to pay digitally. Currently, India is dependent heavily on the import of these items. This move essential to encourage local makers after the decision of demonetisation which made it critical for people to switch to PoS and have enough working ATMs. Most of the current systems crumbled under the heavy demand caused by the amount of people using the system at once. With inputs from PTI