Please clarify me that whether STPI (Software Technology Park of India) is a board appointed by Central Govt. under Sec 14 of Industries (Development and Regulation) Act, 1951 for the purpose of Exemption under Sec 10B of IT Act (referring to Explation 2(iv) of the said sec).
Software Technology Parks of India' (STPI) is a government agency in India, established in 1991 under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, that manages the Software Technology Park scheme. It is an export oriented scheme for the development and export of computer software, including export of professional services. The STP Scheme provides various benefits to the registered units, which includes 100% foreign equity, tax incentives, duty free import, duty free indigenous procurement, CST reimbursement, DTA entitlement, deemed export etc. STPI has played a seminal role in India having earned a reputation as an information technology superpower. STP units exported software and information technology worth Rs. 215264 crore in FY 2010-11.[1] The state with the largest export contribution was Karnataka (see Bangalore) followed by Maharashtra,Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh. STPI has a presence in many of the major cities of India including the cities of Bangalore, Trivandrum, Bhilai, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Pune, Guwahati, Noida, Mumbai, Kolkata, Kanpur, Lucknow, Dehradun, Patna, Rourkela, Ranchi, Gandhinagar, Imphal, Shillong, Nashik etc. Besides regulating the STP scheme, STPI centers also provide variety of services, which includes High Speed Data Communication, Incubation facility, Consultancy, Network Monitoring, Data Center, Data Hosting etc. STPI provides physical hosting for the National Internet Exchange of India. The tax benefits under the Income Tax Act Section 10A applicable to STP units has expired since March 2011. While the Government has chosen not to extend the Sec 10A benefits against the demand by the IT units, most of the STP registered SME units shall be affected, who now will have to pay Income Tax on profits earned from exports. A new incentive scheme for IT & ITES companies is under discussion. It will help dispersal of IT industry in smaller cities and also support STPI-registered units which have not come under SEZs as well as other units which are not covered under any incentive scheme. This incentive scheme is seen as an alternate scheme to compensate the STPI units, but the same would be restricted to those units located in tier II and III cities. However, proposal is still under consideration and no announcement has been made.
Eligibility of a 100 per cent EOU for deduction under section 10B is that it should be approved by Central Govt. through appropriate authority constituted under section 14 of Industries (Development and Regulation) Act; and if a 100 percent EOU is only approved by Director, STPI it would not be a valid approval.....
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