National Policy on Software Products – 2019

The National Policy on Software Products – 2019 has been approved by the Union Cabinet. The policy is aimed at developing India as a Software Product Nation. An outlay of Rs 1500 crore divided into Software Product Development Fund and Research & Innovation fund is envisaged to implement the programmes/ schemes envisaged under this policy over a period of 7 years.
The Policy is aimed at giving a direction for the formulation of several schemes, initiatives, projects and measures for the development of Software products sector in the country as per the roadmap envisaged therein.

Five Missions of the National Policy on Software Products – 2019

• To promote the creation of a sustainable Indian software product industry, driven by intellectual property (IP), leading to a ten-fold increase in India’s share of the Global Software product market by 2025.
• To nurture 10,000 technology startups in the software product industry, including 1000 such technology startups in Tier-II and Tier-III towns & cities and generating direct and indirect employment for 3.5 million people by 2025.
• To create a talent pool for software product industry through (i) up-skilling of 1,000,000 IT professionals, (ii) motivating 100,000 school and college students and (iii) generating 10,000 specialized professionals that can provide leadership.
• To build a cluster-based innovation-driven ecosystem by developing 20 sectoral and strategically located software product development clusters having integrated ICT infrastructure, marketing, incubation, R&D/testbeds and mentoring support.
• In order to evolve and monitor scheme & programmes for the implementation of this policy, the National Software Products Mission will be set up with participation from Government, Academia and Industry.

The Indian IT Industry is predominantly a service Industry. It is necessary to move up the value chain through technology-oriented products and services to ensure sustainability. Hence to create a robust software product ecosystem the Government has approved the National Policy on Software Products – 2019 to develop India as the global software product hub, driven by innovation, improved commercialisation, sustainable Intellectual Property (IP).

Month: Current Affairs - March, 2019