Indian startup founders on Monday said that to explore a comprehensive digital India, the Union Budget for FY24 must leverage the full inherent potential of the homegrown technology industry to become champions of digitisation.

Gautam Nimmagadda, Founder and CEO of Quixy, a cloud-based no-code application development platform, said that currently, startups can avail of a tax holiday for three years since incorporation.

“However, the ideal exemption should be 10 years, in view of the high cost of solution development. As positive employment drivers, startups also require government intervention in the expensive affair of hiring and retaining the right talent to drive growth,” Nimmagadda said in a statement.

“To lead the startups onwards and upwards, a single-window process to enable the right financial support from government would be incentivising for MSMEs,” he added.

According to ESOPDhan co-founder Nitin Agarwal, the budget can reduce the holding period of ESOP shares of unlisted companies from two years to one year for purposes of capital gain.

“This would make ESOPs a more attractive tool to retain and reward employees, especially among startups that are today seen as major job creators,” Agarwal added.