New Delhi, Feb 29 :     Finance minister Yashwant Sinha feels Indian software companies have matured enough to pay tax on their incomes arising from exports. While the budget makes an effort to boost the information technology sector, Sinha has imposed a tax on income earned from software exports. The hardware sector, however, has a lot to cheer about. Computers sales are set to zoom with major excise duty cuts announced in hardware. The budget 2000-01 is expected to provide the much needed fillip to the hardware sector of information technology. Apart from excise duty cuts, the Centre has reduced the customs duty on many critical hardware items, including ready-to-use computers, from 20 to 15 per cent. Importantly, the duty on computers has been brought down from 20 per cent to 15 per cent. Import duty on computer mother boards has also been cut from 20 to 15 per cent. Import duties on specified capital necessary for manufacture of semiconductor components has been reduced from 15 per cent to 5 per cent. The duty on microprocessor for computers - the brain in all computers - has been slashed from five per cent to nil. Integrated circuits and data graphics display tubes for colour monitors used in computers will not attract any import duty now; duty on floppy diskettes has been slashed from 20 to 15 per cent. What has spurred Sinha into these duty cuts is the commitment made by India to advance its target date for abolishing import duties on finished infotech goods from January 1 2005 to January 1 2003. This date may be advanced further after negotiations with the US and west European countries. Also, as a corollary, duty on intermediate products and finished goods have remain unchanged. This would give the hardware industry sufficient time to adjust to the imminent zero-duty regime. However, the software industry is peeved that they would have to pay an income tax on their export earnings. 'Export earnings of various kinds now enjoy exemptions from income-tax ranging from 50 per cent to 100 per cent. I have, therefore, decide to phase out these concessions over a period of five years,' Sinha said in his budget speech. In the first phase starting 2000-01, the government will withdraw the concessions to the software industry by 20 per cent. The exercise will be repeated every year till reliefs are reduced to zero after five years.