Software Technology parks of India under Ministry of Electronics and Information
Technology(MeitY), Government of India working with the objective of encouraging, promoting and boosting the Software Exports from the country celebrated its 29 th foundation day on 05 th June 2020 through series of online sessions enabling knowledge sharing on policy, emerging technologies and innovation and entrepreneurship and future skilling by senior Bureaucrats from various state government, industry veterans and successful entrepreneurs by brilliant speakers which includes Shri Achyuta Samanta, Hon’ble Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha , Shri Ajay P Swahney, Secretary Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY) Govt of India, Smt Jyoti Arora Spl. Secretary & FA, MeitY Govt. Of India, Shri Rajendra Kumar Addl Secratary, MeitY, Shri Rajiv Kumar, Joint Secretary MeitY, Ms. Debjani Ghosh, President NASSCOM, Shri Subroto Bagchi , Chairman OSDA Govt of Odisha, Shri Ajay Chowdhary, Founder Member of HCL, Shri Anand Deshpande Founder Persistent Systems, Ms Nivruti
Rai, Country Head Intel India and other industry stalwarts and Entrepreneurs.
In the welcome address Dr Omkar Rai , Director General of Software Technology Parks of India
(STPI) said that STPI started its journey from 3 centre in 1989 has now having 60 centres pan india with 52 centres in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cites. He further said that for the inclusive growth and dispersal of IT to smaller towns of the country , MeitY and STPI has come up with India BPO promotion scheme through which BPO units have been established in tier 2 and tier 3 cities of India which are providing jobs opportunities to the local youth. STPI is also supporting budding start-ups and entrepreneur through schemes like Next generation Incubation scheme (NGIS) and Centre of Excellences (CoEs) which are established in various emerging technologies that will catalyse the innovation and product development in the country.
In the inaugural address Shri Sawhney, Secretary , MeitY stressed on leveraging resources to build innovation and appreciated the efforts of STPI in creating centre of excellence (CoE) in emerging technologies and asserted “ it’s the time to reimagine STPI for its role to play in the next decade.”
The journey of STPI is synonymous with the evolution of IT industry in India. However, what
remained unseen was the fact that the beginning of this stupendous journey was quite modest & sober and full of difficulties as well. When few Indian IT companies had started their operations in the early 80’s, the environment for the growth of IT industry was not conducive.
Few visionaries like MGK Menon, KPP Nambiar and Narasimhiah Seshagiri in India saw the opportunities of growth and huge potential for job creation in IT sector through software services and outsourcing.Subsequently, they created the frameworks for the legal, operational, and business processes involved in it. Eventually, they put forward a strategy in 1986 for the promotion of software development and exports, which was published in the Gazette of India.
The first historic event that heralded the genesis of IT Industry in India was the establishment of three Software Technology Parks at Bhubaneswar, Bengaluru and Pune in 1989. Consequently, on 5 th June 1991, these three STPs were merged to create a single entity Software Technology Parks of India. Close to 3 Decades of unflinching service to nation in making India an IT Superpower may seem insignificant in the journey of human civilization. But this short span has transformed a nation from a sober economic performer to a global leader in technology revolution and the fastest emerging economy in the world. As incredible as it may sound, STPI has been the beacon of such journey that has marvelled the global stakeholders many a times.
Today, the US$191 billion IT industry, comprising around 18,000-plus firms that directly employ 4.36 million strong workforce, that contributes 8.0% of GDP is a testimony to the STPI’s resolute performance in transforming Indian IT industry into global outsourcing destination for software exports. Another feather to this cap is that the exports clocked by STP-registered units stands at INR 4,21,103 crore during 2019-20. In last 3 decades, the determined efforts of STPI in promoting IT industry in global platforms and boosting software exports essentially reflect STPI’s commitment towards economic progress of the nation, and team STPI will unswervingly continue to fulfil the
aspirations of the “New India” in times to come. As a policy enabler, STPI has been bringing out futuristic schemes apropos the technological advancements. Having a vision for transforming India into a product nation, STPI has been activating multiple initiatives under “National Policy on Software Products” approved by Government of India recently.
To enable the Indian IT industry to face the challenges of Industry 4.0 and build India’s leadership in emerging technology areas like IoT, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented & Virtual Reality,FinTech, Medical Electronics, Health Informatics, Gaming & Animation, Machine Learning, Data Science & Analytics, Cyber Security, Chip Designing, ESDM etc. STPI is embarked on setting up 21+ domain-centric Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in collaborative manner across India. These CoEs will enable a pan India vibrant tech startup ecosystem in times to come. As India is on the forefront of adopting disruptive technologies, the STPI CoEs will unmistakably play the role of catalyst and provide the desired momentum to the innovation and startup led future growth of IT industry.
STPI has played an important role in promoting Madhya Pradesh as a major IT destination with
support from the Centre and the state, through STP, EHTP and Non-STP schemes, state of art
incubation facility, data communication and other value added services.STPI established its first facility in the commercial capital of MP in the year 2001 and since then with
support from the Centre and the state has been working towards promotion and growth of
IT/ITES/ESDM sector and boosting overall export from the region. In this endeavour, STPI-Indore has come a long way and playing the role of as a catalyst in positioning Madhya Pradesh as the most preferred destination for outsourcing IT and IT enabled services that is aptly proven by the stupendous growth in IT exports reported by STPI-Indore registered units from Rs 50 crore in 2000-01 to Rs 800 crore (Unaudited) in 2019-20 thus providing direct employment to more than 14000 IT professionals.
STPI has established its centre in Gwalior in the year 2012 and Bhopal in the year 2018 and has beenproviding subsidised state of art incubation facility to many start ups and MSME. It is worth to mention that STPI has waived off the incubation rental of all its start ups and MSME incubation units from March to june 2020 as a support to help them sustain in this corona pandemic.
Under the Digital India initiative, STPI has worked to take IT to the smaller town and cities and
through its India BPO promotion scheme (IBPS) has been successful in bringing BPO units in cities
like Sagar, Vidisha, Shivpuri, Gwalior apart from Indore and Bhopal which are providing job
opportunities to the locals. In all 1400 seats were created in the state of Madhya Pradesh under IBPS.
STPI is also launching Next generation Incubation Scheme (NGIS) from 11 locations pan India, whichincludes Bhopal also. NGIS offers comprehensive support & services to technology start-ups. The selected start up would be supported with quality infrastructure, mentoring by industry veterans, capacity building & skill enhancement through seminars, workshops & trainings along with seed funding upto Rs. 25 Lakh. This scheme will build robust ecosystem, promote entrepreneurship & innovation by nurturing start ups that will boost development of sustainable software products and transform India into a product nation.