Bengaluru: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said India is using technology as a weapon in the war against poverty.”Under the Svamitva scheme, we are using drones to map lands in rural areas. Then, property cards are given to the people. This reduces land disputes. It also helps the poor to access financial services and credit,” he said in a pre-recorded video message at the inauguration of Bengaluru Tech Summit 2022.
PM Modi who is attending the G20 meet in Indonesia, appeared virtually to kickstart the Bengaluru Tech Summit in its silver jubilee year. He addressed Indian startups from 16 states and 600 innovators displaying their concepts and investments at the event. Over the course of three days, about 20 new product launches are also scheduled for the summit, to unveil tech that consumers can expect in future.
Modi said “During Covid-19, many countries were struggling with a problem. They knew people needed help. They knew benefit transfers would help. But they did not have the infrastructure to benefit people. But India showed how technology could be a force for the good,”
From ranked 81st in 2015, India has jumped to the 40th rank in the Global Innovation Index this year, Modi said. “The number of unicorn startups in India has doubled since 2021. We are now the third largest startup hub in the world. We have over 81,000 recognised startups. There are hundreds of international companies that have R&D centres in India. This is due to India’s talent pool,” he said.
In India, technology is a force of equality and empowerment, which is mirrored in the world’s largest health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat that provides a safety net for about 600 million people. “This programme is run based on a tech platform,” he said.
Modi said the central government is successfully running its ecommerce platform called Government e-MarketPlace (GeM) for small businesses and traders, who fulfills the government’s needs. “Technology has helped small businesses find a big customer. At the same time, this has reduced the scope for corruption. Similarly, technology has helped with online tendering. This has accelerated projects and boosted transparency. It has also hit a procurement value of Rs 1 trillion last year,” he said.
PM Modi said India is no more a place known for red tape, but known for red carpet for investors in terms of FDI reforms, liberalization of drone rules, steps in the semiconductor sector, production incentive schemes in various sectors, or the rise of ease of doing business.
“India has one of the largest online repositories of open courses. There are thousands of courses available across different subjects. Over 10 million successful certifications have happened. This is all done online and free, India’s data tariffs are among the lowest in the world,” the PM said.
While in his inaugural address Infosys Co-Founder Kris Gopalakrishnan expressed confidence that the IT industry will be recruiting at least 2 lakh people in the near term, despite several challenges including moonlighting faced by it.”I am confident that the industry will face challenges including moonlighting. The industry will grow and continue to recruit. And in the near term the industry will be recruiting at least 2 lakh people in the near term,” he said.
Golpalakrishnan said the industry is expected to grow at 8 to 10 per cent on a base of 220 billion dollars. IT services companies also are setting up companies beyond Bengaluru to smaller centres so that the employees can be closer to home and leverage technology remotely from these centres, he said. “So, I see larger number of smaller centres coming in Mysuru, Mangaluru, Hubballi-Dharwad and Belagavi among other cities,” he added.
