India's digital economy likely to reach $1 trillion by 2021

The Indian digital economy is going to touch US $1 trillion in next five years, giving enormous business scope for the IT industry, with initiatives on good governance and faster delivery driving domestic demand, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

Asked if the current phase of slowdown in the IT industry is a matter of concern, he sought to allay apprehensions, noting that the Indian IT exports has touched the highest ever US $100 billion mark and domestic companies having footprints in 200 cities of 80 countries.

"And all these initiatives of 'Digital India', 'Make in India', 'Startup India' designed to strengthen the IT ecosystem of the country for good governance, and faster delivery is going to create new opportunities," Union Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told PTI.

He also said the government is promoting electronic manufacturing in a big way, and in the last one year alone, 40 mobile manufacturing companies have come to India, which are manufacturing 11 crore mobile phones and giving 40,000 jobs directly and 1.25 lakh-plus indirectly.

"And the larger ecosystem of e-bank, e-payment, e-mandi and other forms of digital delivery that the government promoting is only going to create big demand in nation of 1.25 billion-plus population", Prasad said. He noted that 1.05 billion Indians are on Aadhaar today. "We have opened 24 crore Jan dhan account of poor people who had no bank access."

Four crore mobile phones and six crore Aadhaar have been linked to Jan dhan accounts, which are leading to faster and good delivery of subsidies, Prasad said. "And we have saved Rs 36,000 crore (through Direct Benefit Transfer system for various schemes)".

"With all this ecosystem, which is happening in this country, Indian digital economy is going to become US $1 trillion in the coming four to five years. There is enormous scope in India itself apart from great work Indian IT companies are doing worldwide", the minister said.

--PTI