An overview of growth in the ICT sector in India: can this growth be pro-poor?

World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development

Volumn 3, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 298-315

  Tiwari, Meera ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF EAST LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

India; Information and Communication Technology (ICT); pro poor growth; rural poverty

Indexed keywords

EID: 51249099904     PISSN: 17412242     EISSN: 17412234     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1504/WRSTSD.2006.011110     Document Type: Article

References (97)

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80. Domestic export revenue totalled $2.5 billion in 2001-2002 (NASSCOM, 2002).
81. Despite the opening up of the economy in the early 1990s, many sectors reflect the country’s long legacy of heavy regulation and protection (World Bank, 2001a, p.14).
82. The screen based trading of the Bombay Stock Exchange and the Reservation system for Indian Railways are example of large scale projects served by the domestic software industry.
83. This is an important issue in considering the benefits of ICT technologies for the poor who can best communicate in the local dialect only. See next section for details. There are over 20 dialects spoken in India (GoI, 1991).
84. It is estimated that average salaries of IT workers in developing countries are lower by up to 80% of comparable workers in developed countries (UNCTAD, 2003, p. 135). D’Costa (2003, p.218) notes that Indian salaries in various IT services are between 7-40% of the US industry figures. Arora et al. (2001, p.1275) indicate that one person-year onsite work is billed at about $90,000-$100,000 while comparable offshore work is billed at about $25,000-$35,000.
85. In the absence of strong software development in the Indian dialects (Arora et al., 2001), English is used as a medium to operate the ICT sector in India.
86. Thirty six percent of the ICT firms in the country are located in these three states and generate a revenue of 36% (NASSCOM, 1998).
87. Thirty percent of the ICT firms are in the western ICT cluster and generated approximately 41% of the revenue (NASSCOM, 1998).
88. During the 1990s India had 16% of the global software market, NASSCOM projected India’s share to rise to almost 25% by 2003 (Arora et al., 2001, p.1269). At present the Indian software industry is at par with the Irish and Israeli software industry in terms of revenue and export.
89. Arora et al. note that according to Dataquest (31 July 1996, pp.43–44) India has 16% of the global market in customised software development.
90. From under 18% in 1951 to 65% in 2001 (World Bank, 2001b, p.22).
91. In the 1950s China had comparable low literacy levels. Dreze and Loh (1995) point out to the virtual elimination of illiteracy in the younger age groups in China. Indonesia has achieved 85% literacy with 80% female literacy as compared with just India’s 54% female literacy in 2001 (World Bank, 2001b, p.23; GoI, 2001, p.186).
92. In the absence of data that can be subjected to robust empirical analysis, the conclusions are drawn from speculated discussions based on overall poverty trends.
93. Benefits to the economy are contested on the grounds of regional disparities (D’Costa, 2001) and ‘Dutch Disease’ (Joseph, 2002, pp.15–17).
94. Midwives provide most health services in rural India covering up to 5,000 per midwife across multiple villages (World Bank, 2001b).
95. Fifty eight percent rural households have incomes up to Rs 20,000, 27% have incomes between Rs 20,000-40,000, 12% between Rs 40,000-86,000 and just 3% households have incomes over Rs 86,000 (Chelliah and Sudarshan, 1999, p.63).
96. This is grounded in the debate on the Capability approach to multi-dimensional poverty put forward by Sen (1999, pp.1, 8).
97. The first being the post-independence industrialisation and planning process through the 1950s to mid-1960s (See for example Rao, 1998), the second being the Green Revolution in the mid-1960s (Ghosh, 1998).