Saurabh Gupta | 30 Jan, 2010
In order to witness sustainable growth, India has to ensure that the benefits of IT & ITeS percolate to the common man. Towards this initiative the government of India’s National E-Governance Plan (NEGP) is being implemented to deliver all kind of public services through ICT, said Shankar Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, DIT, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India.

He was speaking at the conference on "Future of India's IT & ITeS Sector; Evolving Business Models for Sustained Growth" organized on Thursday in New Delhi by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in partnership with Punjab Infotech.

He added that the Government of India is committed to take up ICT to record sustainable growth of 12-14% in future. He further stated that in the coming five years a paradigm shift in efficiency and services delivery will be provided. As per NEGP, all Indian states and union territories will have secured network connectivity, by September 2010.

State data centers will be completed through employing concepts of virtualization, green technology, green data centers by September 2011. India will have 250 thousand tele-centers by 2012, which is being worked under PPP arrangement.

Aggarwal also outlined that the sector can be of huge support in reaching out to remote schools and offer quality education. Medical and health sciences which are at present virtually absent from remote villages and towns can reach out through the means of tele-medicine. Access to institutional finance to around 80% households will be instrumental in supporting entrepreneurial capabilities across the nation.

The conference came to came to an end today with a set of recommendations for the sector which are as follows:
Government should focus on protecting the Indian IT industry from protectionist attitude of western nations

Intellectual Property and Patent Law protection should be actively ensured through government’s policies and judicial interventions

Direct tax code’s clause on SEZ will be a big blow to the IT sector, and therefore should be relooked by the government

Tax benefit should be extended to SEZ’s, as the mention of scrapping the taxation benefit clause in the

Leverage virtualization, asset lifecycle management and innovate eco-friendly devices to take full advantage of Green IT through enhanced operational efficiencies and reduced cost of operations as well as carbon emissions

Growth of infrastructure should keep pace with greater quality consciousness

In terms of a country’s competitiveness, two of the most important factors determining Firm size (i.e. size of any company in a country) are the efficiency of the judicial system and the level of development of that country's markets.

In spite of a favourable business environment, the economic scenario today demands a greater involvement on part of the government to work closely with the industry to help in the continued growth of this sector.

The extent of government’s engagement with the industry, to strengthen Infrastructure, Indian IP Protection, Export Promotions etc., would encourage more work on the high value frontier of knowledge and technology.

The session was addressed by key industry personalities like Arvind Thakur, Chief Executive Officer, NIIT Technologies Ltd; Manoj Malhotra, Chief Executive Officer, Salient Business Solutions Ltd & Director, Avantha Technologies Pvt Ltd and Vishal Chhibbar, Chief Financial Officer, EXL Services.