India targets $ 60 bn IT exports by 2008 — Pant

SILICON VALLEY, NOV 13: The government of India has chalked out a multi-pronged strategy for the development of IT sector in the country ...

SILICON VALLEY, NOV 13: The government of India has chalked out a multi-pronged strategy for the development of IT sector in the country for achieving annual export earnings of $ 60 billion by the year 2008 from software and computer and telecom hardware.

"India needs to further consolidate its position as the leading provider of offshore IT services and therefore our emphasis is on developing strategy and policies which facilitate and enable entrepreneurs on one side and deployment of public and private resources on the other," deputy chairman, Planning Commission, K C Pant said.

Addressing a meeting of Indo-US entrepreneurs on future of economic reform process in India’ at Silicon Valley here on Wednesday, Pant said government had provided Rs 100 crore towards setting up a venture capital fund for IT industries, for which all legal formalities had been completed.

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The government was encouraging Indian software companies to invest abroad for acquisition of software/IT companies in order to increaseIndia’s market presence abroad, he said. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had approved up to 50 per cent of their foreign exchange earnings in the past three years subject to a maximum of $ 25 million for Indian companies to undertake investments abroad, Pant said adding "proposals to liberalise this limit further was being considered."

Inviting foreign participation in the IT sector through joint venture route or through setting up of units in India, Pant said India was formulating a policy to achieve the target of a $ 50 billion worth of annual export of IT software and IT services by the year 2008.

Another $ 10 billion of revenue is being targeted by India through computer and telecom hardware exports, he said adding India must create products as well as shrink-wrapped software packages for the global markets. "In order to realise a goal of "IT for all by 2008" in India, we would require rapid spread of IT awareness among the citizens, propagation of IT literacy, networked government and IT led economicdevelopment," Pant said. He said that the country was also working on a drive for setting up a world class info-infrastructure with an extensive spread of fibre optic network, satcom networks and wireless networks for seamlessly interconnecting the local informatics infrastructure and national informatics infrastructure.

Stating that government was providing a corpus of Rs 100 crore towards setting up a venture capital fund for the IT industry, Pant said a number of other venture capital funds particularly from Unit Trust of India (UTI) and Satyam were in the pipeline.

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Pant said the Cabinet had already approved a bill for establishing the legal framework for facilitating e-commerce in India and the bill would be introduced in winter session of Parliament.