t is imperative that there is uniform growth in all these sectors. According to the figures of the recently formed Ministry of Information Technology (MIT), the hardware production during the year 1999-2000 is expected to be Rs. 2000 crores. The PC production is expected to be around 4 lac units during the year against an estimated demand of 1.4 millions. The items of manufacture include personal computers, servers, workstations, super-computers, data processing equipment, and peripherals like monitors, keyboards, disk drives, printers, plotters, digitizers, SMPS, modems, networking products and add-on cards. The bulk production was in PII and PIII based PCs. Amongst the printers, Ink Jet printers have been most popular. The Government is projecting a PC penetration from the present level of 3.43 per thousand to to 20 per thousand by the year 2008. By the year 2001, the domestic demand of PCs is expected to increase to 2 million units against 1.4 million units today. The sectors that are emerging very fast are On-line Transaction Processing (OLTP) and Small office home office (SOHO) sector. The figures presented above are based on MIT statistics. It is not known if these figures include Grey market and assembled computers, which is fairly well established in India. Indian Software Industry Indian software industry has done exceedingly well during the last few years, recording an annual average growth rate of above 50%. The size of the industry is likely to grow from Rs. 15,890 crores in 1998-99 to Rs. 24,300 crores in 1999-2000. A growth of over 55 % has been recorded in software exports and is likely to be Rs. 17,000 crores during 1999-2000. Domestic software business is also witnessing significant growth from Rs. 4,900 crores in 1998-99 to Rs. 7300 crores in 1999-2000. The Indian software industry has worldwide recognition for quality IT solutions. IT applications Communication & Broadcasting The thrust areas covered in this sector no...
