Given that 80% of Indians have no access to proper information and good quality ICT, it is often a wonder that the country still manages to be the top destination for IT related outsourcing and back office services.
The truth is, the major reason behind India's success story in IT is perhaps what has been the country's biggest problems for decades -- population.
Even as the burden of India's 1.3 billion people has pulled the country down in many economic development parameters, its huge population has ensured a supply of abundant English-speaking, technology-savvy, and cheap but skilled IT workers. And this has helped India's IT sector to forge ahead in the global IT arena despite a plethora of hurdles back home.
The county also has a detailed IT Policy, and in fact, over the years has tinkered and experimented with various types of IT policies. But critics say that due to lack of focus and vision, the country has hardly been able to harness its IT prowess to propel the country forward.
Realizing that deficiency, India's main political opposition the Bharatiya Janata Party (or BJP) is now moving in to cash in on the opportunity by offering a well-crafted Indian IT Policy in the upcoming General Elections (in April and May).
Releasing the party's manifesto two days ago, BJP also announced its carefully-crafted IT vision that aims to bring about "the next revolution in India through the use of IT and technology."
Called "Transforming Bharat" (India is called Bharat in Hindi) BJP's IT policy promises IT sops to all -- starting from farmers to students, to even the poor -- if BJP is voted to power that is in the next elections.
So, from proposing a multi-purpose identity card for all citizens, 12 million new information technology-enabled jobs in rural areas, laptops priced at slightly above $200 for millions of students, and providing "cheap" smart mobile phone to every poor, the policy promises to "connect everybody with IT."
In many respects "Transforming Bharat" is indeed impressive, For instance, it promises;
•12 million new IT-enabled jobs in rural areas.
• Multipurpose National Identity Card (MNIC) with unique Citizen Identification Number (CIN) in 3 years; to replace all other identification systems.
• Bank accounts, with eBanking facilities, for all Indian citizens. Direct transfer of welfare funds.
•India to equal China in every IT parameter in five years.
• National Digital Highway Development Project to create India's internet backbone
• Broadband Internet (2 Mbps with 1:1 content ratio) in every town and village, at cable TV prices (less than $4 per month).
• All schools and colleges with internet-enabled education.
•Laptops at about $200 a piece with interest-free loan for funding the laptop, for 10 million students
• Computing in local languages that would include formation of National Mission for Promotion of IT in Indian Languages.
• Promotion of domestic IT hardware industry to minimize dependence on imports.
• Promotion of domestic hosting industry to minimize international bandwidth charges.
• An independent body, called Digital Security Agency (DSA), for cyber warfare, cyber counter-terrorism, and cyber security of national digital assets.
However, in accordance with its Nationalism bias, "Transforming Bharat" also contains a couple of proposals that could be thorns for global IT and top telecom companies. The BJP IT policy stresses on active promotion of open-source software and Internet telephony, which say analysts, could make the likes of Microsoft and the telecom companies see red. Driven by the country's (and Microsoft's) aggressive anti-piracy drive, ever since small and medium sized businesses as well as large enterprises started favoring Linux a few years back, the open-source alternative has gained quite a bit of traction in India.
And arguing that cheap Internet telephony could hit Indian telecom operators hard thus jeopardizing the country's telecom penetration ambitions, the local telecom industry has been fiercely objecting to the introduction of VoIP for years. While the industry says that call prices are cheap enough to offset the benefits of VoIP, many say that not allowing VoIP has deprived Indian consumers the fruits of global competition.
Still it appears that the BJP's IT vision has been well-received by the industry. Commenting on the policy, Sun Microsystem's country director Jaijit Bhattacharya told the press that "We welcome the IT vision of one of India's significant political parties. We believe the policy will help in improving IT industry in India through adoption of open standards and promotion of domestic web hosting industry. We hope other political parties will follow suit."
