We got independence 66 years ago and come 2013 we are a major player there is one major industry which has played an important role, In the last two decades the Indian IT sector has grown to such a great extent that just within 20 years the revenue generated by the IT sector has grown from $150 million in the 1990’s to $100 billion in FY 2012. In this article we take you through the history of this industry which has made India one of the major players in the IT sector.
It all started in 1968 when Tata consultancy services was established in SEEPZ, Mumbai back then it was the largest software producer in India. The establishment of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 1951 helped India to produce skilled professionals which would then take advantages of US policies and by 1960 10,000 professionals would have settle in the US. The center for software development and computing techniques was established in 1973 which aimed to get success in software development.
During 1977- 1980 Information Technology companies Tata InfoTech, ProcSys, Patni Computer Systems and Wipro had become known names .The government established many specialized center’s that aimed to modernize India. Government driven company’s such as MTNL and VSNL were being modernized.
In the 1990’s government made polices shifts which removed many restrictions to liberalize India, Due to this many industries were benefited and one such industry was the IT sector .This allowed foreign investments into the country apart from these the other factor that influenced the growth of the IT sector was large manpower of skilled professionals knowing English and wages were just 1/10th of that of US. This also led to great examples of entrepreneurship such as Infosys .Even the creation of Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) in 1991 at various States in India played an important role. In 1991 electronic mail service, 64 kbps leased line in 1992 and then commercial internet access in 1991 also allowed the IT sector to penetrate more inside the Indian economy. From 1993 -2002 various other policy changes were made and the country’s domestic IT sector also saw an incredible growth.
This has helped many cities such as Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad to grow and has caused a infrastructure boom in various cities Bangalore has become the silicon valley of India with 33% exports of software while Mumbai also offer a fair bit of share in IT exports .The city of Pune has also witnessed a large investment of various IT companies. Over the years many foreign companies have also setup headquarters such as Microsoft , Google , EBay ,Amazon to name a few . Recently NASSCOM estimated the Indian IT sector to be valued at $100 billion in Fy 2012, just adding to what major role it plays in Indian GDP.
Currently the IT sector is growing at a rate of 30% and still remains one of the major employment generator. Whatever way one look at the IT sector, it is contributing to the growth of the Indian economy. It is being predicted that India is going to be a major developed power possibly in the next 20 year’s time and the information technology sector could very well be one of the major contributing factors for getting India into that enviable position.
- Written by Randolph Pereira
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