The IT industry is expected to contribute 30 per cent of all foreign exchange flows into the country by 2008, Minister for IT and Communications, Dayanidhi Maran said.
"It is expected that IT software and service exports will increase from the current 8 per cent to 30 per cent," he said in an interaction with visiting Microsoft executives. The Minister said in the next three years, IT sector will create over two million jobs with software chipping in 1.1 million and ITeS with 1 million jobs.
He said Indian IT software and services sector is on track to achieve its long-term target aspiration of $ 77 billion excluding e-commerce transactions of
$ 10 billion. Maran said the dream of India becoming IT super power and the industry reaching the size of $ 100 billion by 2010 would be achieved only if personal computer penetration in the country is increased and local language software and country oriented contents were developed.
He said one of the major reasons cited for poor IT penetration was the problem of interface. "In a country where only 3-5 per cent of the population
is fluent in English, PCs with applications and operating system in English are a major bottleneck for effective usage," Maran said.