IT SECTOR POISED FOR EXPONENTIAL
GROWTH
EMERGES
AS LEADING EXPORTER IN TERMS OF SOFTWARE AND SERVICES
EMPLOYMENT
OPPORTUNITIES FOR MORE THAN 6 LAKH
IT
PROFESSIONALS PROJECTED
MAJOR
INITIATIVES DURING 1998-2003
BACKGROUNDER
The Indian Information
Technology sector is poised for exponential growth. The sector
witnessed 32.75% export growth in 2001-02 as per the Electronics
and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC). Software
exports of computer software and related services which was Rs.12.500
crore in 1998-99, when this Government took over is expected to
touch Rs.54,000 crore in the year 2002-03. It is likely to make
a quantum jump to Rs.98,000 crore in another two years time (2004-05).
The Tenth Five Year Plan document has set the following target
for the software exports:-
|
YEAR
|
RS. IN CRORE
|
|
2002-03
|
54000
|
|
2003-04
|
73000
|
|
2004-05
|
98000
|
|
2005-06
|
128000
|
A large number of
Indian software companies have acquired international quality
certification. India's expertise in emerging technologies actually
helped the country to get new customers. The companies in Europe
and Japan are increasing their outsourcing to India.
Larger Indian companies
focused on moving up the IT value chain, by offering services,
such as system integration, package implementation, IT outsourcing
and IT consulting. They are also targeting new verticals, such
as utilities, healthcare and retailing, in addition to the traditional
financial services, telecom equipment and manufacturing industries.
Indian IT software
and services industry is projected to provide employment to 650,000
IT professionals by March, 2003. It is estimated that these knowledge
workers, almost 205,000 are working in the IT software and services
export industry; nearly 160,000 in IT enabled services; 25,000
in the domestic software market and over 260,000 in user organizations.
Major Initiatives
Dedication of
Community Information Centres to the N-E States and Sikkim
The Department of
Information Technology has set-up Community Information Centres
(CICs) at 487 blocks in the seven North-Eastern States (Arunachal
Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura)
and Sikkim to provide connectivity at the block level. This will
promote application of Information Technology for accelerating
socio-economic development of the region. The CICs will help in
tackling the digital divide by providing internet access and IT
enabled services and also to facilitate citizens interface with
the government. The CICs were dedicated to the people of North
Eastern States on 17th August, 2002 by the Minister
for Communications & Information Technology.
Media Lab Asia
The Media Lab Asia,
a joint collaboration between the Department of Information Technology
and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, has been an
important initiative to address the challenge of Digital Divide
in India and other developing countries. It would pursue high-end
research in four areas germane to the needs of rural India: ‘World
Computer’ (low-cost computing devices); ‘Bits for All’ (bringing
low-cost connectivity to the doorstep of rural masses; ‘Tools
for Tomorrow’ (creation of low-cost learning tools to bring out
the spirit of innovation among the rural youth); and ‘Digital
Village’ (where the above three research programmes would be demonstrated
for palpable impact).
Media Lab Asia was
included in the list of India’s Fifteen Important National Initiatives
for Poverty Alleviation and Development announced by the Prime
Minister on 15th August, 2002. Media Lab Asia has been
designated as an Asian Regional Hub of the United Nations ICT
Task Force for coordinating activities of academia and the private
sector in the area of IT for the Masses.
Electronic Governance
Information &
Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the advent of the Internet,
provide an opportunity to transform the relationship between government
on the one hand and citizens and business or industry on the other.
E-Governance also affords a unique opportunity for Government
to present a unified and integrated interface to citizens or businesses.
The Government is drawing up a comprehensive programme to ensure
that the benefit of e-Governance reaches all sections of the society
and economy. Various IT activities such as development of software
applications packages, creation of e-governance infrastructure,
National ID, Citizen Databases, GIS/GPS, Smart card and Digital/Educational
Content, etc., in E-Governance domain has been taken up on pilot
scale basis.
The Department had
implemented the ‘Bhoomi’ project on Land Records in the
State of Karnataka. The project is one of the most successful
pilot projects in the e-Governance area in the country. The other
successful projects on e-Governance are Registration, Transport,
Municipalities, Gram Panchayats, Treasuries and Integrated Citizen
Services Centres which are running in different States on pilot
scale.
Vidya Vahini and
Gyan Vahini programmes
To integrate ICT
in the learning environment in the Government and Government-aided
schools and higher learning institution in the country, the Department
of Information Technology has formulated ‘Vidya Vahini’ and ‘Gyan
Vahini’ programmes to provide connectivity and IT Infrastructure
to schools and higher learning institutions in the country. This
will be a step to improve the quality of education and laying
a good foundation at the learning institutions, faculty development
and exchange of skills. Pilot projects have been taken up to connect
about 200 Senior Secondary Schools in the seven districts in the
country and campus-wide network at Delhi University.
E-Commerce and
Information Security
To provide promotional
support for e-commerce and information security to catch up with
the rest of the world and achieve accelerated economic growth
in the country a programme, ‘E-Commerce and Information Security’
was initiated by the Department.
e-Learning
Department of Information
Technology has taken the initiative of promoting e-Learning as
a potential methodology, to compliment the Government efforts
to generate high quality, high-end manpower in the area of Information
Technology.
National Institute
for Smart Government
National Institute
for Smart Government (NISG) has been incorporated as a section
25 company under the Companies Act 1956 on 29th May,
2002. The organization is expected to play a pivotal role in channelising
private resources and competence into the national e-Governance
effort.
Information Technology Act
The Indian government
has created the necessary legal and administrative framework through
the enactment of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000. While
on the one hand it seeks to create the Public Key Infrastructure
for electronic authentication through digital signatures, on the
other hand, it seeks to build confidence among the public that
the frauds in the cyber space will not go unpunished. The Controller
of Certifying Authorities (CCA), set-up for implementation of
the IT Act, has established the National Root infrastructure which
would be used for digitally signing the certificates of all the
certifying authorities. Beginning February, 2002, four Certifying
Authority licence have been issued to operate under the Root.
These are: Safescrypt Limited, National Informatics Centre (NIC),
Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT)
and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).
Indian Computer
Emergency Response Team (CERT)
Internet has emerged
as the principal medium of communication. The open system to share
information needs secure systems that prevent prowlers from taking
away the digital assets. It is essential to create a confidence
level in our own public so that they can begin to use the network
with absolute faith for commerce, communication, entertainment,
software development and governance and ensure safety of the government
network. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) is
being set-up at two locations viz., at Delhi and Bangalore to
ensure that India’s IT assets are appropriately and adequately
protected.
The Semiconductor Integrated Circuits
Layout-Design Act, 2000
The Government has
enacted the Semiconductor Integrated Circuits Layout-Design Act,
2000 to provide for protection of Semiconductor Integrated Circuits
Layout-Design and for matters connected therewith incidental thereto.
Indian Languages Technologies
In a multilingual
country like India with only 5 % population knowing English, it
is essential that information processing and exchange software
should be developed in local languages and be available at low
cost for wider proliferation of the benefits of ICT.
Standardization of
Indian script codes (Unicode), machine translation, speech analysis
and synthesis, lexical resource development, etc., are being addressed
to by the Department for enabling the proliferation of ICT revolution.
Digital Library
Digital libraries
(DL) are a form of Information Technology in which social impact
matters as much as technological advancements. Future knowledge
networks will rely on scalable semantics, on automatically indexing
the community collections so that users can effectively search
within the Intersperse of a billion of repositories. Among a number
of major DL initiatives, the Universal Digital Library (UDL) project
that aims at creating a free-to-read, searchable collection
of one million books, primarily in the English language, available
to everyone over the Internet. India participates in the UDL project
and makes efforts to put content in the Indian language as much
as possible. This project involves participation from many countries
including USA, Australia, India and China and envisages to digitize
1 million books (less than 1% of all books in all languages ever
published).
Braille in Indian Languages
A computerized Braille
transcription and embossing system has been developed under Jai
Vigyan National S&T Mission which can operate in English and
all major Indian languages. The equipment enables a school for
blind children to easily generate reading material, class notes,
questions papers, training material, etc., for the blind students.
The software and hardware have been developed for transcription
of text to Braille and printing of Braille material on the indigenously
developed Braille embosser. The equipment also enables the blind
to communicate with the sighted using a specially developed Braille
Key Board and the Braille to text software. The systems have already
been installed and commissioned in 30 blind schools in different
parts of the country.
Software Technology Parks of India
(STPI)
STPI centers act
as ‘single-window’ in providing services to the software exporters
and incubation infrastructure to Small and Medium Enterprises
(SMEs). STPI is serving software export industry country wide
with its centers located at Bangalore, Pune, Bhubaneshwar, Hyderabad,
Noida, Gandhinagar, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai, Mohali, Jaipur,
Navi Mumbai, Hubli, Coimabatore, Manipal, Mysore, Guwahati, Vizag,
Kolkata, Indore, Srinagar, Aurangabad, Shimla, Nagpur, Mangalore,
Lucknow, Kanpur and Bhilai. More than 7000 units are registered
with STPI. The export revenue of the STP units is showing consistent
growth during the last 5years. The software exports are likely
to be about Rs 37,000 crore during the year 2002-03.
Video Conferencing
Video Conferencing
network has been set-up in all the districts of Uttar Pradesh,
Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh and Uttranchal through NICNET. Video
Conferencing facility has also been set-up at Leh and Neuoma Blocks,
the highest point in the world where on-line Video Conferencing
facility has been made available.
Disinvestment
of CMC Ltd
The CMC Ltd.,
an undertaking under the Department of Information Technology,
has been privatized through sale of 51% of its equity in favour
of Tata Sons Ltd. Tata Sons Ltd. paid an amount of Rs.152 crores
to the Government for acquiring 51% stake in the Company.
Dewang Mehta Award
for Innovation in IT
The Department of
Information Technology instituted Dewang Mehta Award for Innovation
in IT to recognize innovation which has the potential to make
a significant impact on national development or bring fame to
the country. The First Dewang Mehta Award for innovation in IT
was conferred on the Simputer Team led by Shri Vinay L Deshpande.
The Simputer, as a concept / tool, has the capacity to put computing
power in the hands of the masses in the true sense of the word.
Computer Literacy
Excellence Awards
In order to encourage
schools to achieve excellence in computer literacy, the Department
had instituted ‘Computer Literacy Excellence Awards’ for Schools.
The First Computer Literacy Awards to 21 Schools in various States
and 3 National awards were distributed by the hon’ble President
of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam, on 29th August, 2002.
ELITEX
The Department organized
ELITEX to showcase the technologies/products/services developed
under its financial support. The Theme of ELITEX during last two
years were convergence & Enhancing e-readiness and theme for
2003 is - Moving up the Value Chain: India – A Global Destination
for R&D. Many new products developed by the DIT organizations
were launched for commercialization during the event.
International
Cooperation and Bilateral Trade
The Department
regularly interact with the foreign Governments, agencies and
Indian Missions abroad to share our experience and to increase
government to government cooperation
in the Information Technology sector. MOUs have been signed
with various countries for increasing government to government
interaction.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Centre of Excellence for Communications and Information Technology
was set-up in Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia, at a cost of US$1 million.
The Institute as well as five Community Information Centres (CICs)
at location sites selected by the Government of Mongolia were
inaugurated on October 1, 2002.
Ebene Cyber City
and Information Technology Education Centre : The Department
is helping Government of Mauritius in setting up of Ebene Cyber
City and Information Technology Education Centre at Port Louis,
Mauritius. This project is being financed under a credit agreement
between the Government of India and the Government of Mauritius
for utilization of a line of credit of US$100 million from India.
Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), a Society of this Department
is implementing the project.
Kofi Annan Centre
of Excellence in Information Technology : The Department is
also setting up Indo-Ghana Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence for
Communications and Information Technology at Accra, Ghana, and
five Community Information Centres with Indian assistance including
training at an estimated cost of US$ 2 million. The project is
likely to be completed during 2003.
On-line Election Results, Budget
and Examination Results
On-line transmission
of Election results for the States were facilitated through NICNET.
The Doordarshan, other Media and Government agencies used the
NIC election feed back for providing live transmission of election
results to the viewers. On-line transmission of Union Railway
Budget and General Budget was facilitated through NICNET for all
over the country and was widely used by the Media, industry and
other agencies.
NIC published results
of various examinations conducted by the CBSE, State Education
Boards, Universities, Professional Entrance Examinations, Staff
Selection Commission, Institute of Chartered Accountants, etc.,
on its web server (http://results.nic.in).
Facility to download admit cards for certain examinations directly
from the net were incorporated.
IT Venture Capital Fund for the
Information Technology Industry
The Ministry of Information
Technology has been taking various initiatives to promote the
Indian IT and Computer Software Industry. To provide finance for
start-up ventures, the Department in association with Small Industries
Development Bank of India (SIDBI), Industrial Development Bank
of India (IDBI) set up a Rs. 100 crores ‘National Venture Fund
for Software and Industry’. This fund with a contribution of Rs.
30 crores from DIT was launched by the Prime Minister on 10th
January, 2000.
National Task
Force on Information Technology and Software Development
One of the agenda
under the Special Action Plan (SAP) of the Prime Minister is to
make India a Global Information Technology Superpower and one
of the largest generators and exporters of software in the next
ten years. The Government constituted a National Task Force on
Information Technology and Software Development in May, 1998.
The Task Force submitted the reports in three parts in 1998-1999.
The First Report of 108 recommendations relate to telecommunication
policies and procedures, cyber laws, labour laws for IT industry,
fiscal incentives, promotion of IT in schools and rural areas,
computer literacy and computer penetration in the country of which
64 recommendations have been implemented and 37 are in the nature
of ongoing. 3 recommendations have not been accepted and 4 are
not implemented.
Part II of IT Task
Force Report mainly focuses on revival of the Hardware Industry.
This and the Part III of IT Task Force Report relates to Long-term
IT policy
First National
Conference of IT Ministers
The Ministry organised
the first-ever National Conference of various States IT Ministers
for arriving at Common Action Plan to promote IT in India in New
Delhi on July 15, 2000. The Prime Minister, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee,
inaugurated the Conference. Some landmark decisions taken during
the Conference were :
Full deregulation
of National Long Distance Operations (NLDO), before August 15,
2000, with no restriction on the number of licenses to be issued.
NLDO as well as ISD has since been opened with no restriction
on the number of players. Complete demonopolization of undersea
optical fiber connectivity for ISPs by August 15, 2000. The private
ISPs will be allowed, either singly or jointly, to set up their
own landing stations anywhere in India in collaboration with international
undersea bandwidth carriers.
Task Force on
Human Resource Development in IT
In pursuance of the
announcement made by the Prime Minister in the First National
Conference of IT Ministers on July 15, 2002, a Task Force on Human
Resource Development in IT was set-up.
Y2K Roll Over
As the countdown
for the year 2000 began, efforts towards preparing the Nation
for the Y2K problems was strengthened and accelerated by the Government.
Reports from all sectors have indicated that India passed the
Y2K glitch successfully and without any problem.
Other Initiatives
A project on National
Resource Centre for online learning at National Centre for Software
Technology (NCST) Mumbai, has been initiated. This Centre will
enable to develop a vision and supporting infrastructure for academic
and non-formal institutions to understand the opportunity, issues
and technology trends relating to "Online Learning" and thus contribute
to the emergence of India as IT super power. A new R&D Centre
of NCST at Electronic City, Bangalore was inaugurated on 12th
July, 2000. This Centre, in addition to imparting advance level
training, will also serve as a Resource Centre to industry, specially,
in the area of Software Engineering and Product Development.
The Working Group
on Information Technology for Masses has set a ambitious target
of at least 100 million Internet connections by the year 2008
and 1 million Internet enabled IT Kiosks/Cyber Cafes to be established
covering the entire length and breath of the country.
An Advisory Committee
comprising of well known IT professionals from the industry was
set up on 17th January, 2000 under the Chairmanship
of Minister (IT) for Department of Information Technology. The
Advisory Committee will assist Department of Information Technology
to identify thrust/emerging technology areas and will suggest
measures/policies/actions for making Indian IT industry a Global
Superpower.
A Select Group comprising
of successful and well known IT professionals based at Silicon
Valley was formed under the Chairmanship of Minister(IT). The
Group will interact through internet, email, video conferencing
and may meet once in a year and advise the Government on various
issues relating to development of IT, telecommunication infrastructure
and software export from the country.
