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In a year that witnessed all-round economic growth, the Indian government sector has been successful in leveraging the benefits of IT in notable ways. Major initiatives include implementation of various pilot projects under the National E-Governance Plan (NEGP), design and rollout of the State Wide Area Networks (SWANs) and streamlining of business processes and services provided by various public-facing ministries and departments. Complementing the growth of IT adoption by the government sector is the vibrant education sector that has finally awoken and started embracing the benefits of IT in campuses across the country.

The IT market in the government and education sectors for 2006 was Rs 7,718 crore accounting for around 12.5% of the total domestic IT spend in India in 2006, thus recording a y-o-y growth of 21.1% (full year 2006 over full year 2005) according to a recent IDC report titled India Government and Education Sector IT Usage and Trends 2007-2011 Forecast and Analysis.

Growth Dynamics
The PC market in the sector, which has shown a y-o-y growth of 27.7% (2006 over 2005), provided the major impetus for the growth of IT spending. Equally interesting are the dynamics of the software market, which is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 21.2% in the vertical for 2006-11. The IT spending in the vertical is expected to follow a unique pattern with greater emphasis on hardware spending moving towards 2011. The increased emphasis by governments on the rollout of e-Governance projects and the increasing deployment of basic ICT infrastructure by the education sector has given a tremendous boost to hardware shipments in areas such as servers, enterprise storage solutions, and networking equipment.

	The government sectors needs are completely different from any other commercial sector
	Parishesh Mishra, Analyst, Industry Verticals Research Practice, IDC India

Efforts by various Indian governments to spread the benefits of IT to the masses are expected to have far reaching impact on the lives of ordinary citizens as well as help in creating a better climate for new and existing businesses across the country. At the same time, the whole-hearted adoption and leveraging of IT by the education sector is expected to not only improve the quality of content and teaching methodologies, but also to have a multiplier effect on the Indian economy.

IDC believes that in the context of transformation of government business processes, the implementation of IT systems has assumed high priority for all stakeholders, be it the government of the day, employees, vendors, service providers or users. There has been significant progress made by the central (federal) and state governments in their e-Governance initiatives in the last 2-3 years. Projects such as SWAN, State Data Centers and the Community Service Centers (CSCs) have gained huge importance and significance in the Indian context, as these are expected to catalyze the delivery of faster and better government, utility and healthcare services to the vast majority of the Indian population still living in the semi-urban and rural areas. Bringing efficiency in the government functioning, improving the productivity of its processes, process standardization, streamlining service delivery across government departments, and increasing interaction of governments with the citizens as well as business houses are some of the factors that are driving greater investments in information technology in this sector.

Initiatives to Reckon
The governments initiatives to bring more people into the ambit of the system and provide single-window services to ordinary citizens as well as business users are leading to an increased emphasis on spending on networking and communication products. While the implementation of SWANs tops the priority of state governments, other national e-Governance initiatives like universal ICT education in schools and colleges, computerization of land records and other statutory documents, provision of online healthcare services, online filing of tax returns, and automation of various departments of the state governments, are expected to be important milestones in the growth of IT spending by the sector during the period 2006-11.

Vendors need to assume greater responsibility while dealing with government projects. They need to act as trusted partners and advise governments on the most appropriate products that should be used for automation, integration, and efficient delivery of services to citizens and business enterprises. In fact, governments are implementing many projects on a BOT (build-own-transfer) and BOOT (build-own-operate-transfer) bases, and vendors can cash on this for building long-term consultative relationships with the government departments/ministries that they serve, taking advantage of the best the government machinery has to offer and best-of-breed products from their own stable.

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