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Kerala or 'God's own country' as it has
been famously branded, is one of the fastest growing tier-2 and
tier-3 markets for IT. A lot of thrust for this has been led by
e-governance initiatives driven by the state government here. Of Rs
10,000 crore, which were earmarked for IT investment in the budget,
around Rs 350 crore will be invested in e-governance projects.
Addressing the audience at the
Summit 2010 in Kovalam, Dr Ajay
Kumar-Secretary, IT Kerala said, “While a lot of other states
only allocate around 2-3 percent of their IT budgets on e-governance,
we have planned to spend around 3.5 percent of the allocated funds on
the same.”
In a geographic sense, the state is
relatively small nevertheless when it comes to adoption of
technology, Kerala has often been an active forerunner in setting up
an example for other states to emulate. Kerala was the first state to
have all-digital exchanges in telecom. Apart from major metros, it is
a market having highest penetration of mobile phones in the country
with an estimated penetration rate of around 80 percent. Kumar
believed that the state, which already has one of the highest
literacy rates in the country, can drive a lot of IT adoption when
e-literacy or the basic awareness on how to use a PC increases. “We
are already working on a 100 percent e-literacy campaign, wherein we
want to have at least one member in a household capable of using a
computer. We have achieved this target in 5 of the 14 districts in
the state. With more people aware about the need for computing, this
will spur on growth in IT purchases and will also boost the
penetration of internet through mainstream technologies like
broadband,” shared Kumar.
In the last four years, the cumulative
growth of the domestic IT market in the country has been at 120
percent. The market in Kerala, on the other hand, has grown nearly
three times the national rate at around 350 percent over the period
2006-2010. e-Governance will have a large role to play in Kerala's
future progress as a major IT market. For instance, high schools in
the state are getting IT enabled and are also well-connected with
broadband. “Around 70-80 percent of the high schools are already
connected. We are also looking forward to approach the primary
schools, so that the PC can be used more as a tool for learning,”
said Kumar. One key project that is in progress is called 'Akshaya',
wherein around 100-200 common service centers (CSCs) are getting
broadband connectivity. “Each of these CSCs have an average of
around 10-12 PCs and this initiative will help them to connect to the
network,” said Kumar. Another project is that of acquiring data of
around 5.5 lakh state employees, which are entered in a digital
format from the records. “As of now, around 35-40 percent of the
data has been fed into the system. There is also a move toward
getting the entire transaction in the commercial taxation, which is
entered into an IT environment. All these initiatives will definitely
help the
market in Kerala to take off,” signed off Kumar.