The Centre would consider providing certain incentives to the hardware sector in the coming Budget to boost its growth, the Union Communications and Information Technology Minister, Arun Shourie said on Thursday.

"The finance minister (Jaswant Singh) is working on it. The problems of the hardware sector, including the duty structure, are being examined," Shourie said while responding to a question from the audience at the CII Partnership Summit in Hyderabad.

Touching upon the expansion of telecom infrastructure and the need to make efficient use of the entire spectrum, he said that Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has 'almost finalised' a scheme to offer 'special rates' to the IT firms.

Earlier, speaking at a plenary session on 'Connectivity: Essence of Partnership', Shourie allayed apprehensions in some countries over outsourcing IT services to India and asked the industry to make concerted efforts to convince the policy makers in those countries about the benefits of outsourcing.