Information Technology in India is a vast industry which comprises information technology services, consulting, and outsourcing.[1] The IT industry accounted for 8% of India's GDP in 2020.[2][3] The IT and BPM industry's revenue is estimated at US$194 billion in FY 2021, an increase of 2.3% YoY.[2] The domestic revenue of the IT industry is estimated at US$45 billion and export revenue is estimated at US$150 billion in FY 2021.[2] The IT–BPM sector overall employs 4.5 million people as of March 2021.[4] The Indian IT–BPM industry has the highest employee attrition rate.[5][6][7][8][9] In recent years the industry has been witnessing skyrocketing resignations cutting across hierarchy.[5][7][9] As a global outsourcing hub, the Indian IT industry is infamous of exploiting cheap labour.[10][11][12] As IT–BPM sector evolves, many are concerned that artificial intelligence (AI) will drive significant automation and destroy jobs in the coming years.[13][14] The United States accounts for two-thirds of India's IT services exports.[15]
India's IT Services industry was born in Mumbai in 1967 with the establishment of Tata Consultancy Services[16] who in 1977 partnered with Burroughs which began India's export of IT services.[17] The first software export zone, SEEPZ – the precursor to the modern-day IT park – was established in Mumbai in 1973. More than 80 percent of the country's software exports were from SEEPZ in the 1980s.[18]
Within 90 days of its establishment, the Task Force produced an extensive background report on the state of technology in India and an IT Action Plan with 108 recommendations. The Task Force could act quickly because it built upon the experience and frustrations of state governments, central government agencies, universities, and the software industry. Much of what it proposed was also consistent with the thinking and recommendations of international bodies like the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and World Bank. In addition, the Task Force incorporated the experiences of Singapore and other nations, which implemented similar programs. It was less a task of invention than of sparking action on a consensus that had already evolved within the networking community and government.
TIDEL Park in Chennai was the largest IT park in Asia when it was opened in 1999.
Regulated VSAT links became visible in 1994.[19] Desai (2006) describes the steps taken to relax regulations on linking in 1991:
In 1991 the Department of Electronics broke this impasse, creating a corporation called Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) that, being owned by the government, could provide VSAT communications without breaching its monopoly. STPI set up software technology parks in different cities, each of which provided satellite links to be used by firms; the local link was a wireless radio link. In 1993 the government began to allow individual companies their own dedicated links, which allowed work done in India to be transmitted abroad directly. Indian firms soon convinced their American customers that a satellite link was as reliable as a team of programmers working in the clients' office.
A joint EU-India group of scholars was formed on 23 November 2001 to further promote joint research and development. On 25 June 2002, India and the European Union agreed to bilateral cooperation in the field of science and technology. From 2017, India holds an Associate Member State status at CERN, while a joint India-EU Software Education and Development Center will be located in Bangalore.[20]
Contemporary situation
In the contemporary world economy, India is the largest exporter of IT. Exports dominate the Indian IT industry and constitute about 79% of the industry's total revenue. However, the domestic market is also significant, with robust revenue growth.[3] The industry's share of total Indian exports (merchandise plus services) increased from less than 4% in FY1998 to about 25% in FY2012. The technologically-inclined services sector in India accounts for 40% of the country's GDP and 30% of export earnings as of 2006, while employing only 25% of its workforce, according to Sharma (2006). According to Gartner, the "Top Five Indian IT Services Providers" are Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, and HCL Technologies.[21] In 2022, companies within the sector faced significant employee attrition and intense competition in hirings.[22]
The Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park in Hinjawadi is a ₹60,000 crore (US$8.9 billion) project by the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC).[43][44] The IT Park encompasses an area of about 2,800 acres (11 km2) and is home to over 800 IT companies of all sizes.[45] Besides Hinjawadi, IT companies are also located at Magarpatta city, Kharadi, Kalyani nagar,
Yerawada, Aundh and several other parts of the city. Major IT companies like TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Cognizant, Tech mahindra, Cybage, Zensar technologies, Amdocs, Capegemini, Google , Sungard, HCL Technologies, Persistent technology etc. have offices in Pune. As of 2019, the IT sector employs more than 500,000 people.[45][46]
Delhi NCR
Delhi NCR is one of the major IT hub in India. Cities in NCR like Gurgaon and Noida have several companies that serves the local and global markets who take help from these IT hubs.[47]
Kolkata
Kolkata is one of the major IT hub in India. As of 2020, The IT sector employs more than 200,000 people directly.
Major software companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Capgemini, Wipro, Ericsson, Mindtree, Cognizant, Accenture, ITC Infotech, RS Software have their offices set up here, with TCS making Kolkata their largest base.
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Vittal, N.; Mahalingam, S. (2001). Information Technology: India's Tomorrow. Manas Publications. ISBN978-8-170-49119-4.
Ezer, Jonathan (2010). Perceptions of Information Technology in India: A study of the institutional forces that impact how technology is taught, and learned, at Indian Universities. LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. ISBN978-3-838-37279-2.
Arora, Payal. "Politics of Algorithms, Indian Citizenship, and the Colonial Legacy." Global Digital Cultures: Perspectives from South Asia, edited by ASWIN PUNATHAMBEKAR and SRIRAM MOHAN, University of Michigan Press, 2019, pp. 37–52, JSTORj.ctvndv9rb.5.
Gupta, S. D., Raychaudhuri, A. and Haldar, S. K. (2015) 'Determinants of Exports of Information Technology in India: An Empirical Analysis', South Asia Economic Journal, 16(1), pp. 64–81. doi:10.1177/1391561415575128
Dedrick, Jason, and Kenneth L. Kraemer. "Information Technology in India: The Quest for Self-Reliance." Asian Survey, vol. 33, no. 5, University of California Press, 1993, pp. 463–92, doi:10.2307/2645313.
Ramesh Subramanian (2006) India and Information Technology: A Historical & Critical Perspective, Journal of Global Information Technology Management, 9:4, 28-46, doi:10.1080/1097198X.2006.10856431
M.D., Pradeep and B.K., Ravindra, Effective Disbursement of Social Security Benefits to the Labour through Information Technology in India (April 15, 2017). International Journal of Advanced Trends in Engineering and Technology (IJATET), Volume I, Issue I, 2016, SSRN2995342
Krishnan, Rishikesha T., and Ganesh N. Prabhu. "Innovation in the Indian Information Technology Industry: A Study of the Software Product Development Process." Science, Technology and Society 7, no. 1 (March 2002): 91–115. doi:10.1177/097172180200700105
