More Indians benefited by the growing IT revolution
If government contention is to be believed, since the advent of the 21st century, the telecom and IT revolution has raised 290 million Indians above the poverty line, and about 15 to 20 million poor rise to join the ranks of the middle class every year. This is roughly equal to the total population of Australia. According to Ashwani Kumar, Union Minister of State for Industry, who was speaking at a conference on communications convergence by the Indian Merchant Chambers, by 2011, nearly 58 per cent of the rural population and about 95 per cent of urban people will be using mobile phones to conduct their businesses.
Nearly 80 million phones are purchased every year as against 15 million bicycles, indicating that India's people are using mobiles rather than bicycles to achieve connectivity, Kumar said. The robustness of this sector is so immense that if the present growth trends continue, India's import bill for electronics will exceed its oil import bill by 2050, he said. Kumar, however, admitted that there was a tremendous deficit in India's capabilities for manufacturing IT and communications hardware. Also speaking on the occasion, Ashank Desai, Chairman, Mastek Ltd and former chairman of Nasscom said that poor physical infrastructure was choking growth of IT and communications. This included shortage of power, roads and telecom infrastructure in tier 2-3 cities, which could otherwise register massive growth in the IT and BPO sectors.
"There is also a need for convergence between ministries," Desai said, adding, "Otherwise, a lot of necessary policy measures will fall through the cracks between different ministries and departments, which are unable to track the rapid growth of technologies."
