National Policy on Information Technology

The vision of the National Policy on Information Technology (2012) is to strengthen and enhance India’s position as the Global IT hub and to use IT and cyber space as an engine for rapid, inclusive and substantial growth in the national economy.

The policy seeks to achieve the twin goals of bringing the full power of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) within the reach of the whole of India and harnessing the capability and human resources of the whole of India to enable India to emerge as the Global Hub and Destination for IT and ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services) by 2020. The focus of the policy is therefore on deployment of ICT in all sectors of the economy and on providing IT solutions to the world.

The objectives/thrust areas of the policy are as follows:

1. To increase revenues of IT and ITES Industry from 100 Billion USD currently to 300 Billion USD by 2020 and expand exports from 69 Billion USD currently to 200 Billion USD by 2020.
2. To gain significant global market-share in emerging technologies and services.
3. To promote innovation and R&D in cutting edge technologies and development of applications and solutions in areas like localisation, location based services, mobile value added services, cloud computing, social media and utility models.
4. To encourage adoption of ICTs in key economic and strategic sectors to improve their competitiveness and productivity.
5. To provide fiscal benefits to SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) and Startups for adoption of IT in value creation.
6. To create a pool of 10 million additional skilled manpower in ICT.
7. To make at least one individual in every household e-literate.
8. To provide for mandatory delivery of and affordable access to all public services in electronic mode.
9. To enhance transparency, accountability, efficiency, reliability and decentralisation in Government and in particular, in delivery of public services.
10. To leverage ICT for key social sector initiatives like education, health, rural development and financial services to promote equity and quality.
11. To make India the global hub for development of language technologies, to encourage and facilitate development of content accessible in all Indian languages and thereby help bridge the digital divide.
12. To enable access of content and ICT applications by differently-abled people to foster inclusive development.
13. To leverage ICT for expanding the workforce and enabling life-long learning.
14. To strengthen the Regulatory and Security Framework for ensuring a secure and legally compliant Cyberspace ecosystem.
15. To adopt open standards and promote open source and open technologies.