5 revenue boosters for Desi IT cos

[dwarakesh]

Battling a paucity of new contracts in its core western market, the country's information technology industry is turning its gaze inwards. While there is a slump in demand from cash-strapped global customers for new technology services, the home market is increasingly looking good for Indian IT players, with contract sizes matching the ones available overseas.

The habitual growth monster is eyeing government's Rs 40,000-crore technology spend to cope with the downturn. Also, post-elections, with a stable government at the centre, conditions seem ripe for e-governance projects to take off at both the central and state levels.

The government departments plan to spend big monies in their so-called `mission mode projects', as the centre and state governments embrace e-governance and look to digitise everything -- from land records to tax filing. In fact, companies such as TCS, HCL and Wipro have won significant government business in recent months.

Here's looking into the growing domestic pie of Indian IT companies.

[dwarakesh]

National ID card project

The national ID card project (popularly called UID project) is expected to provide an impetus to the domestic demand for IT products and solutions. A billion smart cards for a billion population means a multi-billion dollar business opportunity for domestic IT companies.

Some estimates suggest that the project will create at least an 100,000 additional jobs in the country in the next three years. The government had earmarked Rs 100 crore in the interim budget to kickstart the UID project. The entire ID card project is estimated to be in the range of around Rs 1.5 lakh crore, with the first phase - which will cover ultra urban, urban, and semi-urban populations - offering a Rs 6,500 crore business opportunity.

According to the plan, govt proposes to issue a unique identification number to all citizens by 2011. The Unique Identification Authority of India shall own and operate the unique identification number database and also look after its updation and maintenance on an ongoing basis. In the beginning, the UID number will be assigned based on the National Population Register or electoral rolls. Photographs and biometric data will be added to make the identification foolproof.

[dwarakesh]

Healthcare

With healthcare being an important area, the govt is looking at automation of hospitals to maintain health records of citizens for distributing medicines to crack down on spurious drugs and to monitor an epidemic situation.

The telemedicine project, which will help offer medical services and advice to thousands of patients in remote parts of the country could cost almost Rs 5,000 crore depending on the scope, a senior government official familiar with the project told ET on conditions of anonymity. Some pilot telemedicine projects have already been successful in the North East. The government is also working on automating the public distribution system that provides food items at reasonable prices to poor households.

[dwarakesh]

Healthcare

With healthcare being an important area, the govt is looking at automation of hospitals to maintain health records of citizens for distributing medicines to crack down on spurious drugs and to monitor an epidemic situation.

The telemedicine project, which will help offer medical services and advice to thousands of patients in remote parts of the country could cost almost Rs 5,000 crore depending on the scope, a senior government official familiar with the project told ET on conditions of anonymity. Some pilot telemedicine projects have already been successful in the North East. The government is also working on automating the public distribution system that provides food items at reasonable prices to poor households

[dwarakesh]

Indian Railways

Indian Railways reportedly plans to spend some $1.5 billion on upgrading its IT systems in the next two to three years. It aims to automate and integrate various processes of crew management, train scheduling and freight by spending up to $2 billion over the next few years.

Indian Railways, which is the second largest rail network in the world, also plans to outsource a contract called 'implementation of software-aided train scheduling', valued at around Rs 450 crore.

Indian Railways is launching mobile ticketing vans to make the booking of tickets easier. The first mobile ticketing van would be launched in Mumbai as a pilot project. The van equipped with up linking facility will issue tickets for both reserved and unreserved categories. The Railways is also planning to bring all stations across the country under one network.

[dwarakesh]

Postal department

The state-owned India Postal Department too is gearing up to become a more efficient and customer-friendly organisation. Indian Post plans to evolve as an agency for delivering many citizen services through automated kiosks.

The change of logo in September last year endeavours to reflect the Indian Postal services' corporate approach. It also reflects the departments new thrust on leveraging technology to connect the nation better.

Initiatives like DakNet, ePost and Instant Money Order (iMo) just show the growing technology side of our postal department.

[dwarakesh]

e-governance deals

There are also scores of the government projects that relate to the filing of income-tax, central excise, transport services, computerising municipalities and the police force and developing e-district and e-courts.

Similarly, Desi IT companies are currently participating in pilots with various state governments and Central departments on a number of biometric devices they have developed. Such devices can be used to enroll a person in a particular scheme, check his attendance (for instance, the required 100 days under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) and ensure the money goes to him and not someone else. By linking such a device to a Central database, the implementation of a programme can be measured and leakage can be checked.