Government IT spending in India to touch $7 billion in 2016: Gartner

BENGALURU: The Government of India is expected to spend more on technology this year and fork out at least $7 billion buying technology products and services, according to a report by technology researcher Gartner.

The latest forecast from Gartner comes at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is aggressively pushing to transform India into a tech-savvy nation through his Digital India initiative.

“Government spending on software will total $938 million in 2016, a 9.9 percent increase from 2015,” said Moutusi Sau, principal research analyst at Gartner. “The software market will be led by growth in infrastructure.”

The latest forecast from Gartner includes spending on internal technology services, software, IT services, data centers, devices and telecom services, said Gartner.

The ‘Digital India’ Initiative will also drive much of this spending.

“The ‘Digital India’ initiative continues to be drive investments in the government, led by access of government services on mobile devices (part of the mobile government), and expansion on broadband services,” said Sau.

Gartner said spending on IT services alone is expected to climb 8.8% this year to touch $1.6 billion, while back-office outsourcing spend is expected to jump 22%.