Background: The performance of India's ICT sector is widely held up as an example of the significant and positive effects that the ICT revolution can have for development. According to a NASSCOM report, the Indian ICT sector is expected to contribute 3.15% to GDP in the year 2003. In 2002-03, according to the estimates of NASSCOM, total revenues of India’s software and services industry are projected at approximately US$12 bn (Rs. 58,000 crores), and domestic revenues (excluding IT training) of US$2.5 bn (Rs. 12,000 crores). Indian software and services exports revenues amounted to Rs. 46,100 crores (US$9.5 bn) in 2002-03. India’s software sector is second only to the US, and global corporates continue to increase the outsourcing of their software requirements to Indian companies, despite a slowdown in overall IT spending.

The impressive growth of the ICT sector is considered an indicator of the possibility of a much more widespread and deeper diffusion of ICT, particularly to improve India’s progress in achieving the goals set by the Millennium Declaration in areas such as literacy, education, gender equity and employment by allowing larger sections of the population to exploit or benefit from the benefits of the new technology.

India has undertaken a large number of pilot projects —144 projects according to IT for Change, Bangalore, and many more await launching. Examples of experiments underway, of which there are far too many to be inclusive here, include for instance: the franchise model computer project/kiosks Gyandoot in the state of Madhya Pradesh, which is revenue generating and is expected to become independent of state funding; the “information village” experiment being conducted by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in ten villages in Pondicherry; the introduction of ICT devices into the management of operations of the National Dairy Development Board in Gujarat; the Swayam Krishi Sangam (SKS) smart cards project use of ICT to reduce transactions costs and reduce the cost of credit; the computerization of the Mandal Revenue Offices (MROs) in the State of Andhra Pradesh; the India Health Care Project initiated by CMC Limited that aims to improve the effectiveness of health prevention programs by using computers, communication technologies and Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) for data collection in rural health care delivery systems in Andhra Pradesh; the Seelampur project of Datamation that entails putting ICTs into the hands of the Muslim women in a slum area in Delhi and directly linking the use of ICTs to the alleviation of their poverty; and a number of schemes to use ICT in education (Indira Soochna Shakti-"Empowering a quarter million schoolgirls through ICT", Bicycle-based connectivity in rural West Bengal, mobile classrooms through IT buses in rural Pune, and the Project Shiksha - Computer Literacy aiming to accelerate computer literacy by providing instruction in software solutions, comprehensive training for teachers and students, IT curriculum development, and scholarships for teachers and students across India.

These projects, among the others, provide the blueprints for possible replication and/or scaling up, allowing for the potential that ICT holds for human development to be realized. The government’s IT Task Force has recommended that the best of these should be replicated across India, but financing issues remain to be addressed. While there are a few over-arching lessons that are being derived from these experiments, the focus of this workshop will be how to scale and replicate such projects through public-private partnerships and through the international donor community.

Goal of Workshop: The goal of this workshop is to explore the investment, cost, and public/private partnership issues related to scaling up and/or replicating pilot ICT projects in India. The workshop will discuss a draft proposal.