ICT innovations, PPP model key to a digital India: India Inc
LUCKNOW: Extending full support to the government's 'Digital India' programme that envisions creation of Internet and Communication Technologies (ICT) infrastructure, senior ICT industry leaders pledged to innovate and offer the most advanced integrated technological solutions required by the government to achieve this, at a conference on ICT innovations for next generation, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in the national capital recently.
ICT infrastructure underlined at the Digital India conference include high speed internet at all 2.5 lakh gram panchayat level, on demand availability of government services like health and education and digital literacy of citizens.
Pramod Bhasin, founder and vice chairman, Genpact India said, "To complement government's programme of digital inclusion, we must innovate and offer the most advanced solutions to the government which integrate data analytics, GIS, biometrics etc to enhance governance, food, health, physical and cybersecurity, energy, strengthen education, healthcare, transportation and other public delivery systems to the last mile and improve the standards of living of the people, especially in rural areas."
"It is only through PPP model that the vision can be accomplished", he added.
He said the programme can be successful in attaining last mile connectivity to more than 635,000 villages, 250,000 panchayats, 6,000 blocks and 672 districts, 1.2 million government schools, more than 50,000 public and rural libraries, more than 100,000 departments and public agencies, if and only if the ICT industry executes and manages the desired projects and provides out of the box solutions reducing the high cost of broadband in India, which is presently four times of that of China.
The government has identified broadband and mobile networks as key growth pillars under Digital India, but it will serve the purpose by bringing about process improvements, removing capacity constraints, adopting efficient operational models and by leveraging the emerging technologies like Social Media, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC).
Bhasin emphasized, "India should aim to replicate the countries like Brazil, Singapore, China etc and create Wi-Fi zones across cities and villages. It would not be done by single large IT company, but by thousands of small startups of young entrepreneurs who are willing to take risks."
Hence, we need to create an enabling eco system which renders entry of new young Indian players easy in ICT sector. If we support the youth with conducive policies and incubator facilities initially, they can create cutting edge solutions, he said.
Citing India's ranking in a UN survey on e-governance, Saurabh Srivastava, chairman, Steria India, lamented, "Despite having the third largest internet user base, India unfortunately stands at 124th position out of the 190 countries. It is because our governance is neither participatory, nor service oriented. Further, the policy making is also not analytics driven and hence there is a lack of transparency."
Another interesting aspect about India is that 75% of the new internet users and 50% of the existing net users are active only on mobile phones as against 10-15% in China and US. The industry emphasized on the need to innovate and find applications and solutions which are efficient, specific to mobile users, suitable for viewing on small screens in order to cater efficiently to this industry with $3 trillion potential globally.
LUCKNOW: Extending full support to the government's 'Digital India' programme that envisions creation of Internet and Communication Technologies (ICT) infrastructure, senior ICT industry leaders pledged to innovate and offer the most advanced integrated technological solutions required by the government to achieve this, at a conference on ICT innovations for next generation, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in the national capital recently.
ICT infrastructure underlined at the Digital India conference include high speed internet at all 2.5 lakh gram panchayat level, on demand availability of government services like health and education and digital literacy of citizens.
Pramod Bhasin, founder and vice chairman, Genpact India said, "To complement government's programme of digital inclusion, we must innovate and offer the most advanced solutions to the government which integrate data analytics, GIS, biometrics etc to enhance governance, food, health, physical and cybersecurity, energy, strengthen education, healthcare, transportation and other public delivery systems to the last mile and improve the standards of living of the people, especially in rural areas."
"It is only through PPP model that the vision can be accomplished", he added.
He said the programme can be successful in attaining last mile connectivity to more than 635,000 villages, 250,000 panchayats, 6,000 blocks and 672 districts, 1.2 million government schools, more than 50,000 public and rural libraries, more than 100,000 departments and public agencies, if and only if the ICT industry executes and manages the desired projects and provides out of the box solutions reducing the high cost of broadband in India, which is presently four times of that of China.
The government has identified broadband and mobile networks as key growth pillars under Digital India, but it will serve the purpose by bringing about process improvements, removing capacity constraints, adopting efficient operational models and by leveraging the emerging technologies like Social Media, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC).
Bhasin emphasized, "India should aim to replicate the countries like Brazil, Singapore, China etc and create Wi-Fi zones across cities and villages. It would not be done by single large IT company, but by thousands of small startups of young entrepreneurs who are willing to take risks."
Hence, we need to create an enabling eco system which renders entry of new young Indian players easy in ICT sector. If we support the youth with conducive policies and incubator facilities initially, they can create cutting edge solutions, he said.
Citing India's ranking in a UN survey on e-governance, Saurabh Srivastava, chairman, Steria India, lamented, "Despite having the third largest internet user base, India unfortunately stands at 124th position out of the 190 countries. It is because our governance is neither participatory, nor service oriented. Further, the policy making is also not analytics driven and hence there is a lack of transparency."
Another interesting aspect about India is that 75% of the new internet users and 50% of the existing net users are active only on mobile phones as against 10-15% in China and US. The industry emphasized on the need to innovate and find applications and solutions which are efficient, specific to mobile users, suitable for viewing on small screens in order to cater efficiently to this industry with $3 trillion potential globally.
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