New Delhi: India hold the 58th position in the world on e-readiness ranking - an important measure of a digital society, Minister of State for Information Technology
Sachin Pilot informed the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
Replying to supplementaries during Question Hour, he said
e-readiness is the measure of the quality of country's
information community technology (ICT) infrastructure and
ability of its consumers, businesses and Government to use ICT
for their benefit.
"As per the Economist Intelligence Unit's e-readiness
ranking for the year 2009, India ranks 58 among the countries
of the world," he said.
IT sector provides direct employment to 2.5 million people
and has created eight million indirect jobs, he said.
The Government, he said, had launched National Knowledge
Network at an outlay of Rs 5,990 crore, to interconnect all
universities, libraries, laboratories, hospitals and
agricultural institutions to enable them to share data and
resources over high speed information network.
He said the Government plans to connect all village
panchayats through broadband internet connection in three
years.
Under the National e-Governance Plan, the Department of
Information Technology was establishing common, shared
e-Infrastructure. Rs 1,623.20 crore has been approved for
State Data Centres (SDC) Schemes besides Rs 1,649 crore for
setting up 100,000 Common Services Centres.
"High mobile penetration (more than 550 million) and
increasing internet penetration in the country is providing a
conducive environment for moving towards a digital society,"
he added.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, April 22, 2010, 14:33