Information technology in India

The Electronics Committee also known as the "Bhabha Committee" created a 10-year (1966–1975) plan laying the foundation for India’s IT Service Industries.[10] The industry was born in Mumbai in 1967 with the establishment of Tata Consultancy Services[11] who in 1977 partnered with Burroughs which began India's export of IT services.[12] The first software export zone, SEEPZ – the precursor to the modern-day IT park – was established in Mumbai in 1973. More than 80 percent of the country's software exports were from SEEPZ in the 1980s.[11]

Within 90 days of its establishment, the Task Force produced an extensive background report on the state of technology in India and an IT Action Plan with 108 recommendations. The Task Force could act quickly because it built upon the experience and frustrations of state governments, central government agencies, universities, and the software industry. Much of what it proposed was also consistent with the thinking and recommendations of international bodies like the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and World Bank. In addition, the Task Force incorporated the experiences of Singapore and other nations, which implemented similar programs. It was less a task of invention than of sparking action on a consensus that had already evolved within the networking community and government.

TIDEL Park in Chennai was the largest IT park in Asia when it was opened in 1999.

Regulated VSAT links became visible in 1994.[13] Desai (2006) describes the steps taken to relax regulations on linking in 1991:

In 1991 the Department of Electronics broke this impasse, creating a corporation called Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) that, being owned by the government, could provide VSAT communications without breaching its monopoly. STPI set up software technology parks in different cities, each of which provided satellite links to be used by firms; the local link was a wireless radio link. In 1993 the government began to allow individual companies their own dedicated links, which allowed work done in India to be transmitted abroad directly. Indian firms soon convinced their American customers that a satellite link was as reliable as a team of programmers working in the clients' office.

A joint EU-India group of scholars was formed on 23 November 2001 to further promote joint research and development. On 25 June 2002, India and the European Union agreed to bilateral cooperation in the field of science and technology. From 2017, India holds an Associate Member State status at CERN, while a joint India-EU Software Education and Development Center will be located in Bangalore.[14]

In recent years there has been a boom in startups in India across all industries but especially the Information Technology sector. This boom is in part due to various start up schemes such as the Start Up India Scheme and T-Hub. Schemes like this provide resources to support the creation of new startups in hopes to stimulate the economy and put India at the forefront of innovation across all sectors. While the scheme has supported and incubated many companies and helped them succeed, there has been a lack of active support for ST and SCs in the action plans. This reflects a trend across the Information Technology sector as a whole with marginalized communities having a harder time breaking into this booming industry.

In the contemporary world economy, India is the largest exporter of IT. The contribution of the IT sector in India's GDP rose from 1.2% in 1998 to 10% in 2019.[15] Exports dominate the Indian IT industry and constitute about 79% of the industry's total revenue. However, the domestic market is also significant, with robust revenue growth.[16]

The industry's share of total Indian exports (merchandise plus services) increased from less than 4% in FY1998 to about 25% in FY2012. The technologically-inclined services sector in India accounts for 40% of the country's GDP and 30% of export earnings as of 2006, while employing only 25% of its workforce, according to Sharma (2006). According to Gartner, the "Top Five Indian IT Services Providers" are Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, and HCL Technologies.[17]

The IT and BPM industry's revenue is estimated at US$194 billion in FY 2021, an increase of 2.3% YoY.[3] The domestic revenue of the IT industry is estimated at US$45 billion and export revenue is estimated at US$150 billion in FY 2021.[3] The IT industry employed almost 2.8 million employees in FY 2021.[18] The IT–BPM sector overall employs 5.4 million people as of March 2023.[19][20]

In 2022, companies within the sector faced significant employee attrition and intense competition in hirings.[21] Indian IT revenues grow fastest in a decade to $227 billion in COVID-19 pandemic -hit FY22. NASSCOM in its Strategic Review predicted that the IT industry can achieve the ambitious target of being a US$ 350 billion by FY26 growing at a rate of 11-14 per cent.

Software Technology Park of India, Patna

STPI envisaged under Digital India program launched the India BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS). this scheme seek to incentivize establishment of 48,300 seats in respect of BPO/ITES operations across India. STPI is the nodal agency of this scheme under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. Director General STPI has announced to launch 48,000 such seats across the country, with a target employment of 72,450 in the sector.[22][23] The government provides financial support of up to Rs 1 lakh per seat under two plans—India BPO Promotion Scheme and North East BPO Promotion Scheme. The Scheme is distributed among each State in proportion of State's population with an outlay of Rs. 543 Crore. 50,000 employment reported as of August 2023 under the India BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS).[24]

However, recently, most of the Indian BPOs, even smaller and mid-sized ones, are setting up their onshore presence in the markets they serve. Most of the large players are improving the outsourced business processes by leveraging on their years of experience, and now some are offering more than just plain vanilla BPO processes. KPO, transformation and Consulting opportunities are gaining favour among large third party BPO providers like Genpact, Infosys BPM, Pulsus Group, WNS Global Services and EXL Services.[25][26]

Andhra Pradesh, as part of the Digital India IBPS Promotion Scheme (IBPS), has secured 13,792 seats out of a total of 48,300 seats available across India and created 10,000 jobs.[27][28] Pulsus, a company that invested Rs. 440 crore, performed exceptionally well, obtaining 4,095 IBPS seats. This achievement placed Pulsus ahead of 154 companies in 93 cities. Consequently, 5,000 jobs were established in Visakhapatnam, with 4,000 of these opportunities being filled by women. [29]Pulsus also received Rs. 41 crore in viability gap funding. Gedela Srinubabu, CEO of Pulsus, expressed immense pride in their contribution to IBPS's success, which has resulted in the creation of 25,000 jobs over a span of 15 years, including 5,000 through IBPS. Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar praised Pulsus's accomplishments and aims to extend the programme to Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities as well as rural areas, thus shaping India's digital future. Arvind Kumar, Director General of STPI, also commended Pulsus for its significant role in promoting women's employment.[30][31]

Below is the State wise list of revenue in IT exports as of FY2023.[32][33][34]

Top IT services companies in India in 2022 by market capitalization.[35][36][37][38][39] In September 2021, TCS recorded a market capitalisation of US$ 200 billion, making it the first Indian IT tech company to do so.[40][41][42] On 24 August 2021, Infosys became the fourth Indian company to reach $100 billion in market capitalization.[43][44]

Top IT services companies in India in 2022 by revenue.[45][46]

The Indian IT-BPM industry has the highest employee attrition rate.[68][69][70][71][72] In recent years, the industry has seen a surge in resignations at all levels.[68][70][72] As a global outsourcing hub, the Indian IT industry benefits from a lower cost of living and the consequent cheaper labor.[73][74]

In the last decade most of the IT companies developed indigenous R&D and innovation capabilities to develop home grown IT products.[75] As the IT–BPM sector evolves, many are concerned that artificial intelligence (AI) will drive significant automation and destroy jobs in the coming years.[76][77]

In recent years, many IT workers use forged experience certificates to gain entry into the Indian IT industry.[78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85] These fake documents are provided by consultancies that are mainly operating out of Hyderabad and Bangalore.[78][79][80] IT professionals frequently use proxy interviews to clear interviews, but the majority of the phoney candidates are rejected during the interview round.[86]

A 2017 study of technical support scams published at the NDSS Symposium found that, of the tech support scams in which the IPs involved could be geolocated, 85% could be traced to locations in India.[87] Indian call centres are infamous for defrauding customers from the US and Europe.[88][89][90][91][92][93] Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai are the main operating locations for these fraud call centres.[94][95][96][97]

• List of Indian IT companies
• List of special economic zones in India
• Business process outsourcing to India
• Software Technology Parks of India
• List of publicly listed software companies of India
• Supercomputing in India
• Data centre industry in India