The Indian Perspectives on ICT Policy

INDIA: SOME BASIC FACTS

Governance and Demographics• Democracy, Secular, Independent Judiciary– 3 tier governance: Centre, Provincial and Local

• Population: 1,156,897,766 (July 2010 )– Young population - Median age of 25.9 years.– Population growth rate: 1.407% (2010 )

• GDP – (purchasing power parity): 4th in the World $3.57

trillion (2009)– (official exchange rate): $1.236 trillion (2009)

• Reserves of foreign exchange and gold: – $274.7 billion (31 October 2009), $254 billion (31

December 2008)

Economy• One of the fastest growing economies. Even when the rest

of the world was in recession India grew at more than 7% !– GDP - real growth rate: 7.4% (2009), 7.4% (2008), 9% (2007)– Expected to grow at above 10% from next year

• Exports: $164.3 billion (2009 ), 203.1 billion (2008)– Software, Gems and Jewellery, Commodities, Garments and

Textiles, Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, Vaccines, Petroleum products, Steel etc.

• Industrial production growth rate: 8.2% (2009 )– Labor force: 467 million (2009)

• Services driven, Consumption driven

– 100 Indian Companies have market cap of US$ 3bn – 1,000 Indian Companies have received foreign

institutional investment– The market capitalization of top 10 Indian Companies

is more than 450 billion USD– 125 Fortune 500 companies have R&D bases in India– 390 Fortune 500 companies have outsourced

software development to India– Only 2% loans are bad in Indian banks

Telecom• One of the fastest growing telecom markets in the world

– total telephone subscribership base is approaching 600 million– an overall teledensity of 50%, and subscribership is currently growing nearly

20 million per month; urban teledensity has reached 100% and rural teledensity is about 20% and steadily growing

• Good infrastructure – One of the world's largest domestic satellite systems, the Indian National

Satellite system (INSAT), with 6 satellites supporting 33,000 very small aperture terminals (VSAT)

– Some major international submarine cable systems, including Sea-Me-We-3 , Sea-Me-We-4, Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG), South Africa - Far East (SAFE), the i2i cable network , and Tata Indicom link provide bandwidth available for both voice and data traffic

– Satellite earth stations - 8 Intelsat (Indian Ocean) and 1 Inmarsat (Indian Ocean region) and 9 gateway exchanges

• Telephones - main lines in use: 36.76 million (2010), Telephones - mobile cellular: 545 million (2010)

• Internet country code: .in, Internet hosts: 3.611 million (2009), Internet users: 81 million (2008)

POLICY PERSPECTIVES ON ICT IN INDIA

Telecom Policy Perspective• Telecom is deregulated

– TRAI– Large number of private operators– Government owned land based and mobile operator exists but operates under TRAI

guidelines• Mobile telephony

– GSM and CDMA – 2 G

• services successfully running for several years– 3 G

• Spectrum auction successfully conducted and released. Operators will start services soon• WiMax

– Spectrum has been auctioned successfully• Security

– Blackberry Controversy – considered a security threat – given 2 months to address government concerns

– Government has the right to snoop provided it is authorized by competent authority• VoIP

– Security concerns– Intra country restrictions

• Open Source– Encouragement to open source by government

• ICT in Government – National Electronic Governance Plan – 6 billion USD– Mission Mode Projects of both central and provincial governments

• Security– National infrastructure exists and taken seriously– IT Act facilitates prosecution efforts

• PC penetration is low at 3%• Internet

– Penetration is low– Government is trying to improve the situation by policy interventions

especially in broadband.

Information Technology

New Areas of Policy Intervention

• Privacy of Data• Local Language Applications• Low Cost Computing Devices• Convergence• Faster Internet• Redundancy of Internet connection• Computerization of Government in a big way – NeGP• Leveraging mobile devices for citizen services• Security• Anti Piracy Drives• Linking Industry with Educational Institutes• Bridging the Digital Divide

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