Shed subsidy mindset, focus on technology, says Telangana IT secretary

The Telangana government has taken a cue from governments of countries such as Singapore and Wales that play an active role in tech-enabling their small and medium businesses (SMBs) instead of supporting them through fiscal sops and subsidies.

Delivering the keynote address at the Lenovo IT4SMB Times Techies Tech Drives event, Telangana IT & industries principal secretary Jayesh Ranjan cited the example of over a 1,000 kirana stores that the government in Hyderabad helped go digital during the hard Covid-19 lockdowns in March 2020.

“The lockdown came as a boon for ecommerce companies, but we realised kirana stores were hit very badly. We were approached by CAIT (Confederation of All India Traders), which asked us to help kirana stores get digital solutions. We tied up with a company called Global Linkers,” he said.