Over Three Times Increase in Revenue from it and ITES Industry Envisaged
Revenue to Reach 300 Billion USD by 2020
Measures for India to Emerge as Hub for Language Technology Suggested
Shri Kapil Sibal, the Minister of Communications and Information Technology released the Draft National Policy on Information Technology, 2011 here today. Speaking on the occasion, Shri Sibal said that Information Technology is a key driver of an increasingly knowledge based global economy, and given its current global position in the IT and ITES sector, India is well positioned to enhance and leverage its existing IT capabilities for a leadership role. The Minister further said that the technology has transformational power, and it is a great leveler of opportunity within and across economies. With the right policies and investment in infrastructure, he said, we have the opportunity to strengthen and enhance our position as a global IT power-house. On the domestic front, use of IT in all sectors can transform our economy, enhance equity and help the nation to rapidly improve its development indices.
Shri Sibal highlighted that the draft National Policy on IT 2011 envisages to increase revenues of IT and ITES Industry from 88 Billion USD at present to 300 Billion USD by 2020. In this context, he underlined the significant contribution of the IT Sector to the growth of Indian economy over last decade which registered a growth rate of 8 per cent. Since, of a USD 88 Billion IT industry in 2010-11, 80 per cent of the revenues comes from exports, the Policy proposes to encourage growth of indigenous demands and market. The proposed Policy also aims at formulating fiscal and other incentives to attract investment in this sector in Tier II and Tier III cities.
The Indian IT and ITES sector currently employs over 2.5 million skilled people and has been one of the major employment generators in the last two decades.
The focus of the IT Policy is on deployment of ICT in all sectors of the economy and providing IT solutions to the world. The National Policy on IT aims to strengthen and enhance India’s position as the Global IT hub and to use IT as an engine for rapid, inclusive and sustainable growth in the national economy.
The Policy aims to maximally leverage the power of ICT to help address the monumental economic and developmental challenges the country faces.
The thrust areas of the policy include to:
i. Increase revenues of IT and ITES Industry from 88 Billion USD at present to 300 Billion USD by 2020.
ii. Formulate fiscal and other policies to attract investment in IT Industry in Tier II & Tier III cities.
iii. Promote innovation and R&D in cutting edge technologies and development of applications and solutions in areas like localization, location based services, mobile value added services, Cloud Computing, Social Media and Utility models.
iv. Provide fiscal benefits to SMEs and startups in the key industrial sectors for adoption of IT in value creation
v. Leverage Internet, Web and mobile technologies for developing new products, technologies and businesses.
vi. Integrate Internet based and mobile based delivery of services onto a common platform to enable seamless, ubiquitous, secure and personalized delivery of government and non-government services throughout the country
vii. Integrate Aadhaar, financial and location-based services into this integrated platform to foster an ecosystem for innovation in services
viii. Create a pool of 10 million additional skilled manpower in ICT.
ix. Make at least one individual in every household e-literate.
x. Extend the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) and mandate provision of all Government services through Electronic mode within a fixed time frame by enactment of the Electronic Delivery of Services (EDS) Bill
xi. Enhance transparency, accountability, efficiency, reliability and decentralization in Government and in particular, in delivery of public services.
xii. Leverage ICT for key social sector initiatives like Education, Health, Rural Development and Financial Services to promote equity and quality.
xiii. Make India global hub for development of language technologies to encourage and facilitate development of content accessible in all Indian languages and thereby help bridge the digital divide.
xiv. Enable access of content and ICT applications by differently abled people to foster inclusive development.
xv. Facilitate adoption of ICTs in key economic and strategic sectors to improve their competitiveness and productivity.
xvi. Strengthen the Regulatory and Security Framework for ensuring a Secure Cyberspace ecosystem.
The draft Policy is available on the website of Department of Information Technology (www.mit.gov.in). Comments and feedback on the draft Policy are invited by Department of Information Technology.
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