Union Minister of State for Planning V Narayanasamy today assured the IT industry that their concerns over the proposed Direct Taxes Code and lapse of Tax concessions would be taken up with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

"You are one of the largest employment providers in the country and the Governemnt would come to your support.The tax concessions and DTC are going to be your problem. Therefore, we would like to ensure that whatever be the problem, I will take it to the Prime Minister and Finance Minister", he said.

Narayanasamy, who looks after IT in the Union Planning Commission was speaking to reporters after inaugurating a two-day conference Connect 2010, organised by industry body Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here today.

Industry sources said the Direct Taxes Code Bill proposed income tax benefits for Special Economic Zones (SEZs) notified on or before Mar 31, 2012. Units in SEZs commencing commercial operations by Mar 2014 shall be allowed profit linked deductions permitted under Income-Tax Act, 1961.

Besides, Software Technology Parks of India benefits, which are expected to end in 2011,would badly impact industry, especially smaller and medium sized companies, they said.

"As a person looking after the IT sector in the Planning commisssion, I will be your ambassador in protecting the interests of the IT industry..I told the Pime Minister that the IT industry is one of the growing industries in India and should not suffer (by DTC and Tax concession issues)",he said.

Urging Indian IT industry to try to be a pioneer in the hardware industry, he said a blueprint on it was formulated by the Ajay Chaudhry committee, which has submitted its report.

"The Government is yet to finalise the recommendations and it will be implemented based on that", Narayanasamy said.

He said India would need to import hardware components worth USD 419 billion in the next five years.

The Minister suggested that the industry focus on R&D and as this area was also a major area of concern. "You also need to invest in R&D, with the investments with which we can also upgrade our technology", he said.

Tamil Nadu IT Secretary PWC Davidar said the Government was seriously looking at developing e-governance programme. "We have already covered the entire scholarships given to students of Backward class community online. This year we are looking at distributing Rs 200 crore worth of scholarships to Adi Dravidar community online", he said