India to be a $1 trillion digital economy in 4 years: Ravi Shankar Prasad

A high level meeting was organised in the national capital to understand on how to achieve a US $1 trillion digital economy within four years by creating affordable technology and an inclusive environment. Besides the Union Minister of Law and Justice of India, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad and Union Minister of State, Ministry of Law and Justice, Shri P P Choudhary, the meeting on building India's digital economy saw the presence of Indian technology giants and leaders. 

There were industry experts like R Chandrashekhar President – Nasscom; Rajan Anandan, VP & Managing Director - Google India; Rishad Premji, Chief Strategy Officer – Wipro; C P Gurnani, MD and CEO- Tech Mahindra; A P Hota, Managing Director & CEO of National Payments Corporation of India; Rajendra S Pawar, Chairman & Co-Founder - NIIT Group, Subho Ray, President - Internet and Mobile Association of India and Kavin Bharti Mittal, CEO - Hike Messenger, among others.

The minister spoke on how the government is committed for deform and perform, by using digital delivery and services like the AADHAR and 2.5 lakh Common Services Centres (CSC) spread across the country. Nearly Rs 1200 crore income has been generated by CSCs. “With this we can definitely achieve the said target, where there is a multi-billion dollar opportunity that exists in areas like IT and IT enabled services, e-commerce, electronics manufacturing, digital payments and cyber security. 

While giving a brief of the progress that has been made in the Digital India initiative from the period of May 2014 to June 2017, the Minister said that India became the second largest market for smartphones in the world, with smartphone users rising to 40 crores, mobile phone users to 108 crores and Internet users to 50 crores in 2017. India has also emerged as the 3rd largest start-up eco-system with IT/Technology start-ups dominating the start-up scenario in the country. Nearly 400 new start-ups are coming up every year. The e-commerce market has also seen nearly 100% growth with the figure showing 2.11 Lakh Crore customers shopping online in December 2016. The growth in e-governance transactions has also gone up, with the latest figure from April pointing to 3.5 crore. The growth in Digital Payments has been drastic after demonetization, with Mobile wallet, UPI-based payment, Debit Card, IMPS and Aadhaar enabled Payment System being the top digital payment modes. 

He further said that in the last 3 years, six lakhs employment have been generated in the country. The Indian IT sector has crossed Rs 10 lakh crore in revenue and exports have crossed Rs 7.5 lakh crore. 

"I don't have any doubt that India will become a US $1 trillion economy in 7 years. My humble request is why to wait for 7 years. Can we do it in 3-4 years?" the Minister said in his keynote address, while still adding that the country needs to develop its own model for digital development that is inclusive. "Create a technology which is affordable, create infrastructure which is developmental, create an environment which is inclusive. Companies can also make India a hub of low-cost technology for cyber security," he said.

Minister PP Chaudhary in his speech said that cyber security is of immense importance and companies should look at storing all data within Indian boundaries in a secured manner.



WAY FORWARD


* Accelerating broadband connectivity to rural areas

* Strengthening Legal Framework for Data Security

* Building momentum for electronic manufacturing

* Attracting investments in Data Centres/Cloud

* Expanding BPO/BPM industry

* Promoting Software industry

* Leveraging crowd sourcing for innovative solutions

* Strengthening Cyber Security

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