It has also envisaged to boost IT and ITES exports from the existing level of $59 billion to $200 billion by 2020.

It is a part of the triad of policies to drive the national agenda for information and communication technology and electronics (ICTE) released by the Union Minister for Communication and Information Technology, Kapil Sibal on Friday. The draft National Policy on Electronics was released on last Monday. Similar policy will be released soon on telecommunications. All these policies will be sent to the Union Cabinet for approval.

The draft National Policy on Information Technology noted that the Indian economy has achieved a growth rate of around 8% over the last decade. The contribution of the IT sector to this growth being significant with the 80% of the revenues coming from exports. The Indian IT and ITES sector currently employs over 2.5 million skilled people and has been one of the major employment generators in the last two decades. The policy paper envisages to increase this workforce to 10 million skilled people by 2020.

Information Technology is a key driver of an increasingly knowledge based global economy, and given its current global position in the IT and ITES sector, India is well positioned to enhance and leverage its existing IT capabilities for a leadership role. The technology has transformational power, and it is a great leveler of opportunity within and across economies. With proper policies and investment in infrastructure in place there is an opportunity to strengthen and enhance India’s position as a global IT power-house. On the domestic front, use of IT in all sectors can transform our economy, enhance equity and help the nation to rapidly improve its development indices.

The focus of the policy is on deployment of ICT in all sectors of the economy and providing IT solutions to the world. It aims to strengthen and enhance India’s position as the Global IT hub and to use IT as an engine for rapid, inclusive and sustainable growth in the national economy.

The policy aims to maximally leverage the power of ICT to help address the monumental economic and developmental challenges the country faces.

With a view to expand its domestic demand the policy has proposed extensive deployment of IT in education, rural development and healthcare. It would aim to make at least one individual in every household e-literate. As major IT hubs like Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune and the National Capital Region of Delhi, which account for nearly 90% of the total industry, are near saturated and face infrastructural challenges and human resource constraints, the policy suggested the IT and ITES Industry to diversify into Tier-II and Tier-III cities.

Emerging technologies such as mobile technology, localisation, virtualisation and cloud computing can provide Indian IT and ITES Industry a major opportunity to become partners in value creation and drive transformation in the country.

It has proposed formulation of fiscal and other policies to attract investment in IT industry in Tier-II and Tier-III cities. It has also suggested providing fiscal benefits to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and startups in the key industrial sectors for adoption of IT in value creation.

The policy has favoured leveraging internet, web and mobile technologies for developing new products, technologies and businesses and Integrating Internet-based and mobile-based delivery of services onto a common platform to enable seamless, ubiquitous, secure and personalized delivery of government and non-government services throughout the country

It has suggested Integrating Aadhaar, financial and location-based services into this integrated platform to foster an ecosystem for innovation in services

It has proposed extension of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) and mandating provision of all Government services through Electronic mode within a fixed time frame by enactment of the Electronic Delivery of Services (EDS) Bill

India should be made a global hub for development of language technologies by encouraging and facilitating development of content accessible in all Indian languages and thereby help bridge the digital divide. Access of content and ICT applications by differently abled people to foster inclusive development should be encouraged.

Regulatory and Security Framework for ensuring a secured cyberspace ecosystem should be ensured.