Budget 2012-13: Govt spending seen driving domestic IT sector

Government spend on technology this year is likely to cross record levels with the unique identification authority of India and other technology driven projects in various arms of government getting special attention in budget 2012-13.

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee who stressed the need to tighten the subsidy regime during his budget speech, is banking on technology driven projects to plug leakages in the system. India spends more than Rs 3 lakh crore on subsidies every year.

Besides the Rs 14,323 crore to be spent on Aadhaar, the project which aims to give each Indian a unique identification number, the government will also spend on a mobile based fertilizer management system, an LPG transparency portal, and Aadhaar enabled payment for government schemes in at least 50 districts.

These projects will require major overhaul of the existing systems and digitization of the back end resulting in more government spending.

A national information utility for computerized public distribution system is being created and will become operational by December this year, the government said. With the existing PDS system, nearly 60 % of subsidized grains does not reach the target group.

Shares of India’s top three Information technology companies Infosys, Wipro and TCS were marginally up while the broader BSE IT index gained 44.94 points.