The Role of ICT Sector in India's Economic

Development

A final research proposal submitted in partial fulfilment of the course Law &
Economics-II, Semester IV during the academic year 2017-2018.

Submitted by

Anurag Sharma, 1517

B.A. LLB (Hons.)

Submitted to

Dr Shivani Mohan

April, 2018

Chanakya National Law University

Nyaya Nagar, Mithapur, Patna-800001

 Acknowledgement

I wish to express my sincere thanks to all the people who have helped me

in making this dissertation a success. My indebtedness and gratitude is

especially dedicated to the following people:

My supervisor, Dr Shivani Mohan for her supportive and motivating

guidance. Her continuous supervision and constructive criticism helped me

to realize that learning is a continuous effort: no one can learn and increase

one’s knowledge without hard work. The language is bankrupt to express my

gratitude for her providing me with this great opportunity to know

something and push the limits of my knowledge,

To my family, for the support they have constantly given me in my life.

To my beloved friends, Mrityunjay, Shubham, Ritu, Pratiksha, Digvijay,

Faisal, Akash and Aditya who motivated me continuously to carry on when

I was on the verge of giving up.

I hope my work will serve as an inspiration to the next generations.

Last but not the least I want to thank the God almighty to gift me this

beautiful world in which I was able to develop my personality to the fullest

by loving every piece of life and love be loved by them.

Contents
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 5
2. Components of the ICT Industry .............................................................................................. 8
3. ICT: The Harbinger of Economic Development ................................................................... 11
4. The Global Information Technology Report, 2016 ............................................................. 15
5. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 20
Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................... 21
 Objectives of the Study
The following research has its aim in highlighting the distinguishing features of the Indian ICT
sector and compare it with some other countries so as to know the place where it stands. The
research also has an objective in devising a proper course of action for having an efficient ICT
infrastructure so as to prevent haphazard and unstructured growth. The research will also try to
gauge the benefits that may arise after the finalising of an efficient ICT base.

Research Questions
1. What is the need of having a strong ICT sector?
2. What is the impact on the economy so far?
3. If yes, then what would be the proper course to fructify the vision of having a
sophisticated IT sector in a setup like India where any haphazard addition or reduction
leads to more and more problems?

Hypothesis
The researcher tends to hypothesise that: India lags much behind the international standards
of the ICT infrastructure.

Research Methodology
For the following research the researcher will adopt doctrinal method. The research will make
use of various qualitative as well as quantitative methods.

Limitation of the Study

The quality of the study can seriously be suffer due to the time barrier for the completion of
the project. Further, the incompetency and inexperience of the researcher will be major cause
of all the errors. The researcher humbly apologizes for not doing justice with the research
project.
 1. Introduction

With the advent of 21st century, we find noticeable revolutionary changes in the social and
economic landscape of India. Old values were crumbling and new values were rising. The new
age was called the age of knowledge and the age of information. The world is now at the
threshold of another Industrial revolution. Exponential rise of processing and storage capacities
and unprecedented accessibility of knowledge and information is all over the place.
Information and Communication Technologies is the harbinger of this revolution. The future
of countries, businesses, and individuals will depend more than ever on whether they embrace
digital technologies. And many of those who stand to gain the most are not yet connected. 1

It all started in 1977, when Tata Group in partnership with the Burroughs, an American
company, established the first software export zone in Mumbai, SEEPZ.2 Santa Cruz
Electronics Export Processing Zone was the precursor to what we now call IT parks. More than
80 percent of the country's software exports were from SEEPZ in the 1980s.3

The ICT sector has increased GDP contribution from 1.2% in 1998 to 7.5% in
2012.4 According to NASSCOM, the sector aggregated revenues of US$160 billion in
2017, with export revenue standing at US$99 billion and domestic revenue at US$48 billion,
growing by over 13%.5

Pramod Mahajan, the then Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology,
in his foreword to the NASSCOM-McKinsey Report (2002) emphasised on a joint industry-
government effort to “ensure that the Indian IT sector remains a dominant player in the global
market, and that we emerge as one of the leading countries of the new millennium”. The first
of these goals pertains particularly to India’s IT industry, which has done quite well in the
ensuing decade. The second goal, much deeper and broader, was to employ IT as the backbone
of India’s economic development.
ICT has infinite potential of facilitating growth and development in any country on any given
point of time. This is due to its inherent special characteristics that distinguish it from the

1
The Global Information Technology Report, 2016, World Economic Forum, Available at
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GITR2016/WEF_GITR_Full_Report.pdf,
2
C.R. Bijoy, Special Economic Zones: Profits at Any Cost, C.R. Bijoy,
https://www.countercurrents.org/bijoy221007.htm, Last seen on 18/03/2018
3
Ibid.
4
Indian-Itbpo-Industry,http://www.nasscom.in/indian-itbpo-industry, Last seen on 18/03/2018
5
Ibid.
primitive technologies. The ostensible feature of ICT is to store, send, and receive tremendous
amounts of data is the feature that separates it from other technologies and make it dear to
everyone. A somewhat more special characteristic of IT may be that it is a ‘general purpose
technology’ distinguished by pervasiveness, technological dynamism and innovational
complementarities.6 Breshnahan and Trajtenberg define GPT as key technologies, fully
shaping a technological era, “characterized by the potential for pervasive use in a wide range
of sectors and by their technological dynamism.” They assign 3 feature to ICT as a General
Purpose technology –
1. Pervasiveness- This is the quality of generally applicability i.e., it performs some
generic function that is vital to the functioning of a large number of using products or
production systems.
2. Technological Dynamism- “Continuous innovational efforts, as well as leaning,
increase over time the efficiency with which the generic function is performed. This
may show up as reductions in the price/performance ratio of the products, systems or
components in which the GPT is embodied, or as multidimensional qualitative
improvements in them. As a consequence, the costs of the downstream sectors that use
the GPTs as inputs are lowered, they may be able to develop better products, and
moreover, further sectors will find it profitable to adopt the improved GPT, thus
expanding the range of applications.”7
3. Innovational Complementarities- GPTs project this feature in the sense that when

applied to a sector any technical advancement in them will make it more profitable to
its users and give them an incentive to innovate and improve. They further say, “Of
course, the process of technical advance along a given technological course will

run at some point into steep diminishing returns, scientific breakthroughs will

open up new technological opportunities, and hence the dominant GPT of the era

will be eventually superseded. Thus, and in Schumpeter's spirit, we can think of

the evolution over time of GPT's as spanning some sort of long technological

waves.”8

6
Timothy F. Breshnahan & Manuel Trajtenberg, General Purpose Technologies: Engines of Economic
Growth? , Working Paper, 4148, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, 1992
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
Pervasiveness seems to be an inherent natural characteristic of ICT. There are doubts about
achieving pervasiveness centered on issues of cost and access, in the Indian context. But Table
19 illustrates the positive trends and negates all doubts of costs and access.

Figure 1: Falling Costs of Computing (US$)

Costs of computing 1970 1999 2012

1 Mhz of processing power 7,601 0.17 <0.01

1 megabit of storage 5,257 0.17 <0.01

1 trillion bits sent 150,000 0.12 <0.01

The final aspect of ICT’s speciality explored here is that of efficiency gains and broader
economic impacts. Static gains from the use of IT come from more efficient use of scarce
resources, allowing higher consumption in the present. Benefits that are measurable as
increased market-based economic activity, and hence show up in GNP statistics, are not the
only component of development. Development can include improvements in the capabilities
of the population, independently of any direct or indirect economic impact. Minimum levels of
education, health and nutrition are perhaps the most important examples of such capabilities.
The ability to participate in democratic decision-making can also fall into this category. Of
course, broad-based improvements in the capabilities of a population can have positive impacts
on long-run economic well-being, but this is not a necessary condition for desiring such
improvements. The role of IT in effecting improvements along non-economic dimensions must
also be considered, though this role may be harder to quantify.

9
Pam Woodall, “The New Economy: Survey,” The Economist, September 23, 2000, p. 6, Chart 1, and author’s
calculations.
 2. Components of the ICT Industry
ICT as a GPT has been employed in multifarious fields and sectors and it has been producing
incredible results. This industry consists of many components which are prospering well and
are responsible for ongoing growth curve of India’s economy with a steady rise in revenues
as witnessed in the past few years. The ICT industry has 5 main components:

1. Online Business (e-commerce):

Business Dictionary defines e-commerce as, “Business conducted through the use of
computers, telephones, fax machines, barcode readers, credit cards, automated teller machines
(ATM) or other electronic appliances (whether or not using the internet) without the exchange
of paper-based documents.”10

E-commerce is the activity of buying or selling of products and services online or over the
internet. Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic
funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing,
electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data
collection systems.11

It is further subdivided into 3 categories on the basis of the nature of entities involved in the
transaction:

i. Business to Business e.g., Cisco

ii. Business to Consumer e.g., Amazon, Flipkart etc.; and
iii. Consumer to Consumer e.g., Ebay, Quikr, OLX etc.

2. IT Services;

IT services refers to the application of business and technical expertise to empower

organizations in the creation, management and optimization of or access to information and
business processes.12 The IT services market can be segmented by the type of skills that are
employed to deliver the service (design, build, run). There are also different categories of

10
Electronic commerce (E-Commerce). BusinessDictionary.com. WebFinance, Inc.
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/electronic-commerce-E-Commerce.html (accessed: April 10,
2018).
11
https://prezi.com/by0gaqzgxuvf/e-commerce-is-a-transaction-of-buying-or-selling-online-ele/
12
https://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/it-services
service: business process services, application services and infrastructure services. If these
services are outsourced, they are referred to as business process outsourcing (BPO),
applications outsourcing (AO) and infrastructure outsourcing.

3. ITES (IT Enabled Services):

IT enabled Services (ITeS), also known as web enabled services or Tele-working, covers the
entire range of operations which use information technology for improving efficiency of an
organization. These services provide a wide range of career options that include opportunities
in call centres, back office operations, revenue claims processing, legal databases, content
development, payrolls, logistics management, GIS (Geographical Information System), HR
services, web services etc.

4. Software Products:

Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming,

programming, documenting, testing and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining
applications, frameworks or other software components. It is a process of writing
and maintaining the source code, but in a broader sense, it includes all that is involved between
the conception of the desired software through to the final manifestation of the software,
sometimes in a planned and structured process.

5. Hardware

Computer hardware refers to the physical parts of a computer and related devices. Internal
hardware devices include motherboards, hard drives, and RAM. External hardware devices
include monitors, keyboards, mice, printers, and scanners.

The production of semiconductors and hardware components is relatively costly. It requires

substantial amounts of capital, significant expertise and technological resources, and it has long
development lead times.13 Although barriers to entry for the production of computer hardware
components are diminishing somewhat, attention in some developing countries is now being
focused on software development which, in contrast, emphasises human creativity and much
lower entry costs. Capital requirements are generally lower, but production is dependent on

13
Ernst, D. (1997) 'High-Tech Competition Puzzles: How Globalisation Affects Firm Behaviour and Market
Structure in the Electronics Industry'
specific combinations of technical and creative skills.14 Lower barriers to entry mean that many
smaller companies can engage in applications development, but success is dependent on the
availability of venture capital or other forms of start-up funding.15

Rapid innovations in ICT applications and the availability of high-speed networks are creating
opportunities for generating and managing increasing amounts of information that can be
tailored to users’ needs and which can contribute to development goals. In order to benefit from
these developments, however, a wide range of technological and related capabilities need to be
strengthened.16

In spite of the falling costs and new entry opportunities related with software development,
most ICT development work continues to be established in a selected handful of countries and
this has an impact on the conditions of ICT deployment and its world-wide use. In Asia, China,
Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, have become incredibly successful
in producing consumer electronics and computer technologies. India has found ways to exploit
software development markets by adding value through assembly and testing and the country
has captured a small but growing share of the world export market for software. In the case of
India, start-up funding from a United Nations agency provided the basis for an expansion into
export markets based on cost advantages and, more recently, on quality. Nevertheless, the
sustainability of these ventures may be challenged as new generations of components,
including microchips and PC motherboards, require less labour intensive techniques.

14
Ibid.
15
Heeks, R. (1996) India’s Software Industry: State Policy, Liberalisation and Industrial Development. New Delhi:
Sage Publications
16
Bell, M. and Pavitt, K. (1993) 'Technological Accumulation and Industrial Growth: Contrasts between
developed and developing countries', Industrial and Corporate Change,
 3. ICT: The Harbinger of Economic Development

One of the basic characteristics of the digital revolution is that it is cultivated by a different
type of innovation, increasingly based on digital technologies and on the new business models
it allows. In addition to making traditional research tools more powerful, it allows for new and
near-costless types of innovation that require little or no R&D effort. Examples include the
digitization of existing products and processes, distributed manufacturing, and advertising-
based “free services” as well as the prospect of more efficient activities in multiple sectors,
including transport, banking, entertainment, and education.17

The Global experience show that ICT has a great potential to revamp every sector of the
economy be it governance, banking, transportation etc. The industry has contributed
significantly to the Indian economy in terms of GDP, foreign exchange earnings and
employment elevation.

Majority of the Fortune 500 and Global 2000 corporations are sourcing IT-ITES from India.
There are around 600 centres set up by Indian IT companies in 78 countries catering to the IT
related requirements of people in over 200 cities. They are performing very well and showing
remarkable double digit growth in terms of national GDP.18 In the financial year 2015-16, our
revenues have grown from 1.2 per cent to nearly 9.3 per cent. The IT sourcing market of India
has grown from 52% in 2012 to about 56% in 2016. By 2020, this sector is expected to reach
USD 225 billion target.19

India is becoming one of the most preferred destinations for business process outsourcing
(BPO) as far as IT enabled services are concerned. These services are boosting Indian economy
and this is evident in their contributions to national gross domestic product (GDP).20

17
World Economic Forum (2016), Global Technology Report, 2016, Available at:
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GITR2016/WEF_GITR_Full_Report.pdf, Last seen on 12/04/2018
18
Indian-Itbpo-Industry,http://www.nasscom.in/indian-itbpo-industry, Last seen on 18/03/2018
19
Ishmeet Singh & Navjot Kaur, Contribution of Information Technology in Growth of Indian Economy, 5 INT. J.
RES. 1–9 (2017).
20
Ibid.
 Figure 2: Source21

Figure 3: Source22

According to the report by the Trade Council of India, in 2013 the revenue of the Indian ICT
sector was valued at USD 108 billion and it is expected to reach the USD 225 billion landmark
by 2020. The industry’s performance has demonstrated the sector’s ability to innovate and
deliver results, in order to maintain the growth trajectory.23

The IT sector has helped transform India’s image to a global IT player and been a driver of
higher education. The industry is expected to reach a revenue of USD 225 billion in 2020.

21
Ibid.
22
Ibid.
23
India: ICT Sector (2014), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Denmark, Prepared by Trade Council of India, New Delhi
Today, the revenue of the sector is USD 108 billion. The distribution between the sub-sectors
is that telecom services accounts for 44 % of revenue, IT services accounts for 24 %, devices
are responsible for 17 % of the revenue, while enterprise software only accounts for 7 % of
total revenue but has the highest growth rate of 6, 8 %. In 2013, the overall spending grew with
4, 2 %. However, it is expected the growth will decline to 3, 8 % in 2014. The IT sector
contributed with 8% of the GDP in India, a significant increase from 1.2% in 1998.24

Governance is well recognized as an area where IT can have a positive impact.25 There are two
broad classes of uses of IT for improved government functioning. They suggest a number of
possible uses of the IT so as to derive the best out of any establishment and utilise it to the
fullest:

First, back-office procedures can be made more efficient, so that internal record-keeping,
flows of information, and tracking of decisions and performance can be improved. Second,
when some basic information is stored in digital form, it provides the opportunity for easier
access to that information by citizens. The simplest examples are e-mailing requests or
complaints, checking regulations on a web page, or printing out forms from the web so that a
trip to pick up the forms from a physical office can be avoided. More complicated possibilities
are checking actual records, such as land ownership or transactions. Still more complicated are
cases where information is submitted electronically by the citizen, for government action or
response. The use of IT can increase transparency and accountability, simply by requiring
information, such as basic complaints, to be logged completely and systematically.26

Educational material is another example where recording and duplication can replace more
expensive, skilled labour-intensive alternatives for delivery. The possibilities for interactivity
with digital IT-based educational materials illustrate the advantages of digital IT over older
technologies based only on recording and duplication. Interactivity also implies
personalization, in that an individual can select the precise content that he or she wishes to see.
This feature also distinguishes IT-based content from what was available through previous
technologies. Finally, the sheer volume of information that is accessible through IT is much

24
Ibid.
25
Quibria, M. G. and TSCHANG, Feichin, Ted. Information and Communication Technology and Poverty: An Asian
Perspective. (2001). 1-56. Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School of Business.
26
Ibid.
greater than before: this also allows new kinds of services to be provided at a cost that is
affordable to larger segments of the population.27

The IT sector might simply have empirical characteristics that make it a suitable growth engine
at this time. For example, the Japan chose the automobile industry for development in the 1950s
because of its importance as a consumer durable product, its potential for growth (high income
elasticity) and its use of a set of technologies, mastery of which would benefit other
manufacturing sectors. The Japanese example, with the initial skepticism that met the country’s
plan for an automobile industry, and the two decades it took to make significant inroads into
industrialized country markets, brings to mind some of the early responses to, and experience
of India’s software sector.

As impossible as it may seem that modern IT characterised by technology and associated with
cities has any relevance to application in rural setup where 70% of the population resides
(Census, 2011). Nevertheless, there are many efforts underway in India and other developing
countries to demonstrate the concrete benefits of IT for rural populations, and to do so in a
manner that makes economic sense.28

Even a rough look a typical rural household’s economic activity gives the impression that they
engage in a broad range of transactions and decisions of economic nature which include
production and marketing decisions, saving, consumption, investment and risk management
among other things. What is noteworthy besides the complexity of this economic decision-
making is that many decisions are made with very limited information, and that market
interactions are often subject to high transaction costs, due to imperfections and insufficiency
of information, as well as high transportation costs, inefficient intermediation and time delays.
High transaction costs will always prevent marginal transactions from being undertaken; in
extreme cases, the market may fail to function at all. Given this scenario, the role of IT can be
understood in terms of reducing transaction costs, as well as improving the efficiency of
decision making within rural households (both as producers and as consumers).29

27
Nirvikar Singh (2014) ‘Information Technology and its Role in India’s Economic Development: A Review’,
University of California.
28
Ibid.
29
Ibid.
 4. The Global Information Technology Report, 2016
The present chapter aims to analyse the ICT trends in India and other major fields with regards
to the Global Information Report, 2016 of the World Economic Forum in collaboration with
Cornell University and INSEAD. This insight report studies a total of 139 countries, relying
on the Network Readiness Index – a tool that it devised for assessing the network readiness of
countries 10 pillars. Launched by the World Economic Forum in 2001 and significantly
extended in 2012, the NRI can help to assess countries’ ability to capitalize on the digital
revolution and their preparedness to benefit from the emerging Fourth Industrial Revolution.30

The report uses the NRI to point out some striking patterns in countries’ innovation
performance. The Index aggregates data from 53 indicators, organized on the basis of the
networked readiness framework. Networked readiness rests on whether a country possesses the
drivers necessary for digital technologies to unleash their potential, and on whether these
technologies are actually impacting the economy and society. The drivers are grouped within
four sub-indexes as follows:
A. Environment Sub-Index
1. Political and Regulatory environment (9 indicators)
2. Business and innovation Environment (9 indicators)
B. Readiness Sub-index
3. Infrastructure(4 indicators)
4. Affordability (3 indicators)
5. Skills (4 indicators)
C. Usage Sub-index
6. Individual Usage (7 indicators)
7. Business Usage (6 indicators)
8. Government Usage (3 indicators)
D. Impact Sub-index
9. Economic Impacts (4 indicators)
10. Social Impacts (4 indicators)
Countries are assessed over four categories of indicators:

30
SILJA BALLER, SOUMITRA DUTTA & BRUNO LANVIN, THE GLOBAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2016
INNOVATING IN THE DIGITAL ECONOMY WEF, INSEAD (2016),
 (1) The overall environment for technology use and creation (political, regulatory,
business, and innovation): A high-quality regulatory and business environment is
critical in order to fully leverage ICTs and generate impact.
(2) Networked readiness in terms of ICT infrastructure, affordability, and skills: Measured
by ICT affordability, skills, and infrastructure. It is a pre-condition to generating
impact.
(3) Technology adoption/usage by the three groups of stakeholders (government, the
private sector, and private individuals):
(4) The economic and social impact of the new technologies.
The individual country profiles i.e. the performance consists of 3 parts:
i) Performance Highlights
ii) Graphical Representation of the Country’s score on the 10 pillars
iii) The Networked Readiness Index in Detail

Source: The Global Information Technology Report, 2016, World Economic

Forum

India vs. Singapore vs. Finland: A Comparison

Singapore
The Global IT Report, 2016 places Singapore as the leading participant of the Networked
Readiness Index. It defended its number 1 position of the preceding year’s Index. Its
outstanding performance is underlined by the fact that it ranks 1st in the world in three of the
four sub-indexes (Environment, Usage, and Impact), driven by top spots on several pillars:
political and regulatory environment (2nd), business and innovation environment (1st), skills
(1st), government usage (1st), and social impact (1st). Overall, this ranking is to a large extent
the result of strong government commitment to the digital agenda, including its Smart Nation
program. The drop in the Readiness sub-index to 16th place is largely explained by a drop in
the affordability of broadband, although the price points of broadband packages may hide
quality differences (i.e., a price increase may come with a quality increase). Singapore currently
has an offline population of 18 percent, potentially explained by its demographics, and the
country is still out of the top 10 for individual usage (12th) and business adoption (14th).
Nevertheless, gains from ICT adoption are widely shared in Singapore, as the country tops the
Social impacts pillar, making excellent use of digital technologies to provide access to basic
and government services and ensuring that schools are connected.

Finland

Finland stays in 2nd place with an unchanged overall score, but sees some slight rank drops for
the Environment, Usage, and Impact sub-indexes. The country tops the rankings in the
Readiness sub-index. This is the result of high scores in particular in the infrastructure (3rd)
and skills pillars (2nd); in addition, affordability is very good (13th), although Finland is one
of several countries that sees broadband prices increase significantly this year (51st, down from
39th in 2015). There is currently room for improvement in particular in the business and
innovation environment, where Finland ranks 9th. With 14 days to start a business, the country
comes in only at a low 81st place in this particular indicator; as pressure for firms to bring
products to market quickly is increasing, these types of framework conditions matter more than
ever. That said, Finland has extremely good access to the latest technologies (1st) as well as
venture capital (6th), and its businesses are highly connected (5th on business usage). These
factors are all important in helping Finland achieve its top global rank in economic impacts.
The government is currently perceived as playing a less proactive role in promoting ICTs than
in the past (21st place, down from 10th in 2013): indicators are dropping for government
procurement of advanced technologies, importance of ICTs to government vision, government
success in ICT promotion, and ICT use to boost government efficiency.

India
Despite of improvements in its political and regulatory environment (78th, up four) and in its
business and innovation environment (110th, up five), India slips down two positions to an
overall rank of 91. Although India’s absolute score has changed only marginally in recent
years, the drop can be attributed in part to the fact that other countries are moving ahead at
higher speeds. In addition, lack of infrastructure (114th) and low levels of skills among the
population (101st) remain the key bottlenecks to widespread ICT adoption, especially in terms
of individual usage (120th). A third of the Indian population is still illiterate (95th) and a similar
share of youth is not enrolled in secondary education (103rd). Only 15 out of 100 households
have access to the Internet and mobile broadband remains a privilege of the few, with only 5.5
subscriptions for every 100 people. This is in spite of the fact that affordability has long been
one of the strengths of the Indian ICT ecosystem, with the country ranking 8th this year in this
area. A deep divide persists between well-connected metropolitan hubs and remote rural areas,
where even the most basic infrastructure is insufficient. In 2015 the government launched the
Digital India program, which aims to close this gap by fostering investment in digital
infrastructure, improving digital literacy, and increasingly providing online services to citizens.
India’s performance in terms of providing online services and allowing e-participation has so
far been in line with that of peer countries, but far from the global best (57th and 40th,
respectively).
 5. Conclusion
From the discussion above, it can be easily inferred that within ICT lies an infinite potential
which when tapped transform a nation into a technological giant. The examples of Singapore,
Finland and other top rankers of the Networked Readiness Index, 2016 of the Global IT Report
shows that in order to realize “the big Indian dream” a sound infrastructure is a precondition.
What India lacks is at the very roots of our nation i.e. a sound and effective education system.
The fundamental problem lies in the orientation of the education system towards the
conventional fields which inhibit the scope of any creativity and hence, innovation which in
turn hampers the growth of the economy.
It is the basic rule of economics that in order to maximize the profits the loose ends should be
cut out and efficiency of the individual units should be enhanced. ICT can perform this task
easily and enrich every organization in which it is employed.
The technological infrastructure is another footing where India lacks. India simply lacks the
routers, fiber optic links and servers needed to expand access. Hence, “the hypothesis that India
lags behind the international standards of ICT infrastructure” is found to be correct.
According to a 2015 survey conducted by the Internet and Mobile Association of India, about
a fifth of respondents who lived in urban areas and three quarters of rural residents said they
didn't know about the internet and therefore did not use it.31 If people in developing countries
like India are unable to acquire the capabilities for using the new ICT applications, they will be
increasingly disadvantaged or excluded from participating in the global information society.
The social and economic potential of these new technologies for development is enormous.
The United Nations Conference on Science and Technology for Development (UNCSTD)
suggests that developing countries would be in a stronger position to maximise the potential
benefits of the new applications if they establish national or regional ICT strategies.

The Government will need to continue to build momentum in creating new policies to drive
Internet adoption and to support the growth of Internet businesses. Whether around broadband
spectrum, Internet adoption/availability, data protection, or cyber security, what was applicable
five years back is no more relevant in today’s context, and new policies will need to be
futuristic. They will also need to be cognizant of India’s challenges and figure out ways to
mitigate those challenges. The goal, then, is to create a sustainable environment of public-
private partnerships where the ultimate beneficiaries are the citizens of India.

31
CNN tech, Huizhong Wuhttp://money.cnn.com/2016/03/09/technology/india-internet-access/, Last seen on
14/04/2018
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