IT market to be worth $200 billion by 2010: Kalam

Kolkata, Dec 06: India should reach the ambitious target of USD200 billion by 2010, President A P J Abdul Kalam said here today.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of Infocom 2006, organised byNASCOM and the ABP Group, he said the IT industry and NASCOM shouldreach the USD 200 billion figure with competitive products anddiversification of IT services.

"There are three dynamics of competitiveness--cost effectiveness,quality products and reaching the market in time. A nation can becompetitive also by developing infrastructure and other facilitiesneeded for such development," he said.

Speaking about the government endeavour in attaining thisambitious target, the President said, "We have taken up severalinnovative projects like the national e-governance project which willbe completed by 2007, computerisation of 13,000 districts in thecountry, linking the village knowledge centres and popularisingtele-medicines." The digital gap must be bridged with bandwidthreaching the rural population. The government has also introducededusac-- V-sat facilities to link the remote areas, he said.

Talking about innovation in the IT sector, the Presidentemphasised that software industry should move up the value chain toremain competitive.He urged the IT companies present on the occasion tostart research and development in the areas like embedded software,networking software and infotech-biotech-nanotechnology software.

"India must graduate from Information Communication Technology(ICT) to knowledge community. Nano technology is knocking at our doorand the industry in collaboration with academics and MNCs should worktogether to reach the addressable market," Kalam said.

He mentioned four strategies through which ICT sector could moveup the value chain--- reach the tier-II and III cities to promote theBPO companies, strike joint ventures with countries like Korea andPhillipines and other SE Asian countries, participating ine-governance, telemdicine and e-business programmes and create levelplaying field for small IT companies.

"Innovate and integrate is today's catchword," he said as ininnovation in the IT sector and converging the technology in travel andtourism, bank, insurance, health and other sectors would help theindustry reach the target.

The IT sector should utilise the large pool of human resources available in India in the from of 540 million youths.

UNI