The Indian government has spent over $1 billion on infotech last year, accounting for 9 per cent of the country's total IT spend, according to the estimates of research and advisory firm Gartner.
The government has emerged as the fourth largest vertical IT spender in India. This included hardware and software spend, but excluded salary costs of IT staff.
Announcing this at a preview briefing of the Gartner Summit 2003 'Leveraging IT: What the future holds,' in Mumbai, Gartner Vice President Bob Hayward said the government was the 'only recession proof vertical' that could keep up the momentum in IT spend despite a downturn in the country's economy.
Although 'e-government' is only five years old in India, 12 states already have an IT policy in place. Besides, the government's directive of keeping aside 2 per cent of each state department's budget for IT had been instrumental in driving IT penetration in government offices, he noted.
The combined spend on IT across Asia-Pacific country-governments in 2002 was $15.2 billion. India, on this score, was on par with China, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan and the Philippines.
The most evolved countries and leaders of e-government included Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.
Gartner, however, cautioned that Indian e-government initiatives have reached the peak of inflated expectations and, through 2003, insufficient increases in service levels and difficulties in managing constituent relationships would push it towards 'the trough of disillusion.'
Hayward said: "Over the last year, most Indian states have announced an IT policy, each one trying to compete with the other in terms of mind share. This influx of e-government initiative is bound to lead to a mismatch among constituents' needs, political vision and ability to execute."
But India is not unique in this situation, Gartner estimated, pointing out that through 2004, more than 50 per cent of e-government projects worldwide would fail to deliver the service levels needed by citizens and businesses (0.7 probability).
The two-day event would highlight some of Gartner's expert team of international analysts and consultants, who would discuss global trends in business and technology and highlight their relevance to the Indian business environment.
A special feature of the summit would be the vertical-specific focus. For the first-time ever, the conference would have a dedicated track for the top four IT investment verticals: telecom, manufacturing, BFSI and government.
UNI
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