ICT Initiatives in India: Lessons for Broad-based Development

The success of India’s export-oriented software industry is well known. But whether information and communication technology (ICT) can contribute to development beyond the obvious income effects generated by software exports depends on how pervasive ICT’s impacts are on the economy, ranging from improving the efficiency of existing businesses to enabling the production of new kinds of goods and services. In a developing country such as India, it is of particular interest whether such benefits can reach the poor. For instance, transformation of public and private services into ICT-enabled services may be relatively more valuable for poor people who cannot afford to access such services via conventional means.