The Rise of the Indian Software Industry

Abstract or Introduction

Today India is the second most populous country in the world, with about 1.04 billion people. Two-thirds of India’s population work in the agricultural sector and account for around 25% of GDP. The Indian indicator of human development is one of the lowest in the world, and a large fraction of the population still lives below the poverty line. Nevertheless, due to India’s liberalising reform programme and the rising economic de-velopment, the number of poor people will decline to 220.1 million by 2007 according to the Planning Commission.
The World Bank estimates that India will become the fourth largest economy in the world by 2020. While increasing pressures on domestic industry will have to cope with competition from imports, liberalisation of trade will open up new opportunities for ex-port of goods.
India’s service sector has already become the dominant contributor to GDP, accounting for 46 per cent of the total. NASSCOM, the Indian industry’s lobby, has stated that the country’s exports from software, other IT services and business-process-outsourcing in-dustries grew by more than 25% to $12 billion last year, of which infrastructure services accounted for just over $300m.
The global market for textiles, clothing and agricultural products will expand dramati-cally, but India’s ability to export will depend on its capacity to keep pace with rising international standards of price, quality productivity and service.