This year's budget speech announced today morning by India's finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, has given away barely any sops to the technology consumers of the nation.

If you thought computers and much of the hardware components that go into them would become cheaper -- well not for the next financial year atleast. Nope -- there are no excise duty cuts for computer manufacturers, no excise duty cuts in import of computer parts and peripherals. But there is some cheer for those who are on the move and usually access the Internet via datacards.

Yes, if you plan to log on to the net through a wireless datacard -- well that will turn cheaper for sure from 1 April 2008. For, the finance minister has reduced the excise duty on wireless datacards from 16 percent to nil. You read right -- absolutely zero! And as per our talks with leading telecom operators who sell these datacards, this benefit will be passed on to consumers straightaway. So expect the Bollywood actress Kajol to push a little more for her preferred brand of datacards in her new advertisements.

The other area that the finance minister's speech focused on, and falls in the realm of informaton and technology is the increased grant of Rs 180 crores to the Department of Information Technology, and allocation of funds to set up Broadband-enabled service centers in rural areas. He announced an allocation of Rs 1,680 crore (from an earlier 1,500 crore) to the Department of Information Technology in 2008-09 while allocated funds to set up 100,000 Broadband Internet-enabled Common Service Centers in rural areas, State Wide Area Networks (SWAN), and for a new scheme for State Data Centers. Rs 75 crores wil be provided in the next financial year to the common service centers; Rs 450 crores have been allocated to SWAN, while Rs 275 crores have been granted for the State Data Centres.

Zero customs duty on Set-Top boxes
The finance minister also announced that specified parts of set-top boxes and specified raw materials for use in the IT/electronics hardware industry would be exempt from customs duty. This could mean a drop in prices of set-top boxes as well as TV, DVD players, etc. We are yet to get details on this yet, but will keep you posted on this in our next update. Add to it, he announced customs duty on convergence products to be reduced from 10 percent to 5 percent.

Original Software is now Expensive
Although the dampener came on the packaged software front. The finance minister has announced an increase in the excise duty on packaged software from 8 percent to 12 percent -- this he says is an attempt to bring it on par with customised software that will attract a service tax of 12 percent in the new financial year. So expect the new orignal software to be dearer by four percent. Though with rampant piracy in India, and a handful few paying up for an original piece of sotware, does the majority of Indian consumers care?

This move in a way will act as a deterrant to the anti-piracy campaigns being run by Microsoft and leading software makers. And, the increase in cost of original software will also affect the IT budgets of coporates who usually buy genuine software products.