Information Technology in India

            
The Indian Information Technology industry accounts for a 5.19% of the country's GDP and export earnings as of 2009, while providing employment to a significant number of its tertiary sector workforce. More than 2.5 million people are employed in the sector either directly or indirectly, making it one of the biggest job creators in India and a mainstay of the national economy. In 2010-11, annual revenues from IT-BPO sector is estimated to have grown over US$76 billion compared to China with $35.76 billion and Philippines with $8.85 billion.^[1] India's outsourcing industry is expected to increase to US$225 billion by 2020. The most prominent IT hub is Bangalore. The other emerging destinations are Chennai, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Kolkata, Kochi, Pune, Mumbai, Ahmedabad , NCR . Technically proficient immigrants from India sought jobs in the western world from the 1950s onwards as India's education system produced more engineers than its industry could absorb. India's growing stature in the Information Age enabled it to form close ties with both the United States of America and the European Union. However, the recent global financial crises has deeply impacted the Indian IT companies as well as global companies. As a result hiring has dropped sharply and employees are looking at different sectors like the financial service, telecommunications, and manufacturing industries, which have been growing phenomenally over the last few years.^[2]
India's IT Services industry was born in Mumbai in 1967 with the establishment of Tata Group in partnership with Burroughs.^[3] The first software export zone SEEPZ was set up here way back in 1973, the old avatar of the modern day IT park. More than 80 percent of the country's software exports happened out of SEEPZ, Mumbai in 80s.^[4]
Each year India produces roughly 500,000 engineers in the country,^[5][6] out of them only 25% to 30% possessed both technical competency and English language skills, although 12% of India's population can speak in English.^[7] India developed a number of outsourcing companies specializing in customer support via Internet or telephone connections. By 2009, India also has a total of 37,160,000 telephone lines in use,^[8] a total of 506,040,000 mobile phone connections,^[9] a total of 81,000,000 Internet users—comprising 7.0% of the country's population,^[10] and 7,570,000 people in the country have access to broadband Internet— making it the 12th largest country in the world in terms of broadband Internet users.^[11] Total fixed-line and wireless subscribers reached 543.20 million as of November, 2009.^[12]