Union Minister for Electronics and Telecommunication, Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday allayed fears about shrinking jobs market in the IT sector and categorically said not only his government but the Indian IT industry, led by NASSCOM, was also showing figures that suggest a clear uptrend.
He stated that ”Digital India” campaign was a great success in India as it was empowering people, was inclusive in its nature and was ensuring much-needed change in the country through technological interventions.
On the eve of Modi Government’s completion of three years in office, Prasad announced to form a Digital India Corporation (DIC) to bring in uniformity in the government’s Digital India programme. “The idea is provide strategic support to ministries and various departments of the Central Government and state governments through this umbrella organisation”.
He also announced a new Software Procurement Policy to “address all variations, vagaries and uncertainties in government procurement so they may be avoided” and reiterated that the sector was showing a robust outlook in the last three years of Modi government. “The Digital India footprint was expanding day by day,” he said.
Reeling off figures of jobs created in the past three years and about the future outlook, he said in the financial year of 2017, the industry added 1.70 lakh new jobs and claimed that 2.50-3 million new jobs would be created by 2025. The IT industry had already added six lakh jobs in the last three years and the industry boasted of a total employee base of 3.9 million, Prasad informed, adding there was no downturn in the industry at all.
He said his government was quite in sync with the global developments in the IT sector and was taking along the Indian industry with it to help grow the sector rapidly.
NASSCOM, and IT majors like TCS, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and IBM had been demanding a smooth procurement policy for doing business with ease and it is the result of their consistent representation that a software procurement policy was unveiled today by the minister.
The policy is aimed at level playing field to all stakeholders by defining appropriate pre-qualification and technical evaluation criterion while aligning legal terms and conditions with the requirements of the IT industry.
key initiatives under digital india
bharat net Government stepped up its allocation for BharatNet to Rs 10,000 crore to connect more than 1.5 lakh gram panchayats with Wi-Fi access in 2017-18
Digital payments Government will promote use of BHIM app by offering incentives to both users and merchants. It will also push banks to introduce 10 lakh PoS systems and 20 lakh Aadhaar Pay PoS systems by September. This will help it meet its target of 2,500 crore digital transactions in 2017-18
electronics manufacturing
India has got 250 investment proposals for electronics manufacturing in the last two years. Government has earmarked Rs 745 crore as incentives to promote India as a global hub
Skill development Government plans to launch an online education platform SWAYAM with 350 courses that will act as virtual classrooms. Students will be able to participate in discussions, take tests and earn grades
Banking backbone The government is looking to get primary agriculture credit societies (PACs), crucial for loan disbursements in rural areas integrated with the backend of district central cooperative banks. It would take Rs 1,900 crore to get the 65,000 PACs online.
Tech in governance The government has increased budget provisions under MNREGA to
Rs 48,000 crore, the highest ever allocation under the scheme. The increased budget will go into geo-tagging all MNREGA assets and putting them in public domain. Use of satellite data would help in better monitoring and accountability of funds
