The Indian government will spend nearly $6.9 billion on technology products and services in 2013, up by 10.5 % over 2012, according to a new report. The forecast by Gartner includes spending by government organizations on internal IT (including personnel), hardware, software, external IT services and telecommunications, the research firm said.
Highlights
- Telecommunications, which includes telecommunications and networking equipment and services, will remain the largest overall spending category throughout the forecast period within the government sector. It is expected to grow 6.8 % in 2013 to reach ~ $2.2 in 2013, up from ~ $2.1 billion in 2012 – most of this growth will be in enterprise network equipment.
- Software is achieving the highest growth rate amongst the top level IT spending categories – forecast to be 18 percent in 2013, led by investments in desktop software and infrastructure software.
The industry will indirectly benefit from Government projects such as the Unique Identification project and the National Optical Fiber Network, the report said.
Anurag Gupta, Research Director at Gartner said:
The Indian government is starting to leverage UID identities to authenticate citizens for transferring welfare benefits directly to the recipient’s bank accounts, in the form of cash transfers, thereby creating a new system for welfare benefits.
To expand the benefits of IT, the government has plans to invest more than Rs 20,000 cr to increase broadband penetration.
The electronic chip making project, digitization of academic databases across all educational institutions, vehicle registrations, driving license databases etc will be the major focus areas.
The Indian government recently announced its IT agenda for 2013, which included development of an Android watch, focus on eGovernance app stores, the National Cloud Initiative and the e-literacy program among others.
The government, however, has shut out foreign equipment makers from participating in the National Optical Fiber Network project because of security concerns. It has also issued a notification to departments asking them to procure locally manufactured technology.
The United States has raised objections to India’s plan of making it mandatory for government agencies to source electronics from Indian manufacturers.
