Information & technology yield growth
The twenty-first century is the era of information and technology. The economic power is now being determined according to the power and capturing ability over the information, data. And while having all the information in the hand, technology makes it analysed, interpreted. While the world of IT is becoming a key factor in the international economic context, India is seeking a grand attraction as it is considered as a power centre of knowledge.
What is the IT sector?
The IT sector is the entire sum of all the sectors like IT, ITES, e-commerce and products like hardware and software. Presently, the requirement of IT skills and its methods is inevitable for almost every organisation to bring ease into the business process and encash a competitive advantage in the market. The function of the IT sector is not limited by profitability and economic growth only. It makes the governance and management both better, resulting in its emergence as a backbone of the entire business processes. No one can doubt that almost every business, however the size may be, has an IT requirement.
IT in the Indian Context
There has been an epoch changing development in the technological aspects and correspondingly several neoliberal policies, such as deregulation, erasing or reducing import duties on the IT products et cetera have positively impacted the growth of this industry in India. The Indian government has taken several policies and measures that have strongly played a role behind the development of the IT sector, such as Special Economic Zone, Export Oriented Units, Technology Park, Foreign Direct Investment etc.
In the past two decades, we have seen a rise in the IT sector's contribution to the GDP of India, which amounts to 8.8%. The net revenue of this industry is around USD 6.96 billion, as estimated in the first half of 2021. During the entire financial year of 2020-21, when the pandemic was at its peak, this industry earned revenue on the export amounting to USD 150 billion. There is an estimation of the net expenditure on the IT sector of India to be USD 93 billion and USD 98.5 billion for 2021 and 2022 respectively. There were around 3.1 million people employed in the IT sector of India (excluding the BPM sector) amidst the pandemic, during the financial year of 2020-21. An increase of 4% in the software service exports of India has been observed in 2020-21 from the previous financial year and is estimated at around USD 133.7 billion.
