Hi! My dear friends, Happy Independence Day to all. On this Amrit Mahotsav (75 Years of India Independence), Let’s see how the IT industry or coding journey of India evolved.
Historically Important Years that Led to India’s Reign in IT
Here are some important years throughout India’s history that led India to become the global IT powerhouse it is today.
- 1951: The first IIT was founded in Kharagpur and was inaugurated by India’s first Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.
- 1960: The first working computer was developed in India and offered to the country by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
- 1963: IBM 1620 was installed at IIT Kanpur, the first computer that ran FORTRAN in India.
- 1966: The first UG program in computer science and M.Tech in computer science was introduced at IIT Kanpur.
- 1968: TCS was founded by J.R.D. Tata. TCS has become India’s crown jewel in IT and eventually surpassed IBM, helping India dominate global markets with ease.
- 1970: The Department of Electronics or DoE was set up to fuel the growth of computers and electronics in the country.
- 1973: The first IT software park was built in Mumbai for promoting software exports and IT investment.
- 1977: NIC or National Informatics Centre was founded. NIC maintains and develops all official websites used by districts, states, and national departments.
- 1978: Computer manufacturing was opened to the private sector and companies such as HCL took the Minicomputer Policy to heed.
- 1980: MCA or the Master of Computer Applications program was introduced alongside Tally, India’s most renowned accounting software.
- 1981: Infosys was founded. It has now become another massive IT giant.
- 1982: Wipro entered the IT industry as Wipro Products Ltd. instead of Western India Vegetable Products Limited.
- 1984: RBI recommended that all banks must have EDP or electronic data processing with all back-office operations being supported by computers.
- 1988: DoE introduced the first CDAC in Pune while the National Association of Software and Services Companies or NASSCOM was also founded.
- 1990: India built its first STP or software technology park in Bengaluru. Many other STPs were set up throughout the coming years.
- 1991: India opened up its global markets and foreign companies started pouring in.
- 1998: The internet service provider policy was introduced that allowed non-government companies to provide internet services in India.
- 2002: Private universities were allowed to set up technical institutes.
- 2005: The Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Act was passed. And, special economic zones were built that facilitated duty-free import of hardware and tax concessions. This allowed the IT industry to start booming in India. Within two years, there were over 257 IT companies that were set up in SEZs. Export earnings of Indian companies reached $50 billion in 2010 as compared to $2 billion in 1998.
The Evolution of the IT Industry in India
The evolution of IT all started with the founding of IIT in Kharagpur in 1951 and massive local giants such as TCS and Infosys coming into existence. These companies started competing with MNCs such as IBM and giving them a run for their money.
The success of TCS and Infosys, alongside the emerging HCL, inspired India to delve into IT more and promote development in this sector. Soon, personal computers were introduced to common folk, inspiring many to learn Computer Science and work in IT later.
The support from the government through multiple IT parks that sprung up during the following years and various tax exemptions encouraged many other smaller IT firms to come into existence. This was especially true after the period following India opening itself up to import and export from 1991 onwards.
IBM was already there in India since 1951, however, they had to leave once India decided to close its doors to foreign companies.
IBM later on again came back to India, alongside companies such as Microsoft and HP during the 1990s.
Google followed suit by opening up its offices in India in 2004 with just five employees, now they have thousands of IT professionals working in India, having the second-largest employee base here outside the US.
Many other companies started building their bases in cities such as Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, and Pune such as Oracle, Deloitte, Cognizant, and Accenture. Eventually, this massive country saw the number of IT professionals grow immensely while India benefitted heavily from both the export and domestic revenue from this sector.
So in this article, We saw that how the IT industry evolved in India and how India’s IT history helped current India to lead the IT sector in the world and become one of the most powerful countries in the Digital Era.
So that’s it for today friends, If you have more to share then the comment box is for you, and if you found anything wrong then feel free to correct me. Thanks, Myself Rahul K Raj signing off.
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