Minister for electronics and information technology (IT) Ravi Shankar Prasad announced his ministry’s achievements in the past three years as “transformational, creating empowerment and creating an inclusive India”. He noted the success of Digital India as creating a “new paradigm of development”, with a platform which is “affordable, developmental and inclusive”.
Noting the success of the Aadhaar scheme, he announced a growth of 51 crore more users from 63 crore in 2014, at a low cost of Rs 65 or $1 per head. He noted the “safe and secure” method of digital identity of Aadhaar, dismissing any notions of breach of privacy.
A ‘software procurement policy’ was also launched at the press conference, to integrate consistency in the IT sector. Prasad also noted a “climb of 11 positions for India in the UN eGovernance Index from 2014”. He also announced a substantial growth in e-governance transactions per day, from 66.25 lakh in 2013, to 3.5 crore in 2017 up to April. He noted that Aadhaar has led to a direct benefit transfer of Rs 1.9 lakh crore to the beneficiaries which include poor and needy, and Rs 50 thousand crore has been saved by removing fictitious beneficiaries during digital transactions.
He noted the positive reception to the MyGov Digital Democracy Platform, the Narendra Modi App and the Prime Minister’s radio broadcast, Mann Ki Baat. With respect to the post-demonetisation scenario, he noted the success of the Bharat Interface for Money or BHIM App, with over 2 crore downloads since the end of last year and Rs 1,406.89 crore worth of digital transactions done on the app.
With reference to digital inclusion, he spoke about Common Service Centers, which have seen a growth from 83,000 in 2014 to 2.5 lakh in 2017, which enable empowerment of women, poor and the marginalised, employing 34,000 women. Prasad noted the increase in digitally literate people in India, under the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan, with 82.7 lakh trained candidates, from 20,000 in 2014.
“I wish to compliment the IT Industry of India, which has done a great job in the IT Empowerment of India,” said Prasad, adding that $5.904 billion have been invested in the IT sector as FDI, and a growth of 500 per cent in computer software and hardware investments.
He added that the revenue of Indian IT companies has increased to Rs 10.5 lakh crore from Rs 9.2 lakh last year, and over 40 lakh direct jobs are created in India by IT companies, and over 1.3 crore indirect jobs (out of which 34 per cent are women), with IT exports increasing from Rs 6.3 lakh crore in 2014-15 to Rs 7.3 lakh crore in 2016-17. Prasad added that the government has set up BPO operations even in small towns like Patna, Siliguri, Gazipur, Karmnaar, Sangli, Badgam and so on, and has incentivised BPO operations in the North East too, providing employment to over 15,000 people.
“India is emerging as the third best start-up destination in the world,” Prasad said, with over 4,000 IT start-ups coming up every year with over Rs 24,065 crore invested in these start-ups, and a near 100 per cent growth in the e-commerce. After speaking about the initiatives taken for cyber security,
Prasad noted that that ‘digital economy’ is a “one trillion dollar economy” in the next few years, which includes communications, IT-enabled services, electronic manufacturing, digital payments and cyber security. “NITI Aayog is making an index for states with respect to the IT sector,” said Prasad, adding that reports of a downturn in the IT sector were “exaggerated”, saying that “around 600,000 new jobs were created in the IT sector in the last 3 years, 1.7 lakh new jobs were created this year. And start-ups have employed over 1 lakh people, across more than 4,750 start-ups”.
BW Reporters
The author is correspondent at BW Businessworld, he has a keen interest in sustainability and environmental economics
