Consulting stakeholders for New National Data Centre Policy: Union Minister
Author: BI Bureau
Hyderabad: Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Rajeev Chandrashekhar on Monday said that efforts are afoot to consult all stakeholders for the formulation of new National Data Centre Policy. “Data Centres are an important element of our digital ecosystem that is soon on the way to be a world leading tech ecosystem,” said Chandrashekhar, who visited Microsoft’s Hyderabad centre today.
Microsoft announced its intention to establish the India Data Centre region in Hyderabad to accelerate the country's digital momentum. According to study, Microsoft datacenter regions in India have added 1.5 million jobs to the economy over five years, including 169,000 new skilled IT jobs.
The announcement comes in the backdrop of accelerated digitalization of products and services witnessed over the last two years. There has been a 14 per cent reported rise in the daily data consumption average of 270 Petabytes from pre-lockdown period to an average of 308 Petabytes post-lockdown.
Around 16 per cent more time has been spent by smartphone users as compared to pre-COVID-19 period. Schools and colleges resorting to online education coupled with work from home regulations led to a significant increase in data consumption.
“India’s digital economy is expanding and driving the growth of the Indian economy towards the goal of a $5 trillion economy,” said Chandrasekhar, while crediting Prime Minister Narendra Modi for laying a strong foundation of technology through the Digital India Programme launched in 2015.
Customer demand for cloud as a platform for digital transformation, driving economic growth and societal progress across India, is increasing. According to IDC, Microsoft data centre regions in India contributed $9.5B revenue to the economy between 2016 and 2020. Beyond GDP impact, the IDC report estimated 1.5 million jobs were added to the economy, including 169,000 new skilled IT jobs.
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The exports of agricultural commodities from March to June 2020 shot up by 23.24 percent on-year to Rs 25,552.7 crores.
As the economy comes to a standstill amid the coronavirus-led lockdown, India’s agriculture sector has taken the baton of economic growth in its hands. The exports of agricultural commodities from March to June 2020 shot up by 23.24 percent on-year to Rs 25,552.7 crores, according to the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. The government said that self-reliant agriculture is critical for the goal of an Atmanirbhar Bharat and for this, agricultural export is extremely important as besides earning foreign exchange for the country, the exports help farmers, producers, and exporters to take advantage of the wider international market and increase their income.
The surge in exports has also resulted in increased production in the farm sector by increasing coverage area and productivity. The share of India’s agricultural exports and imports in the world agriculture trade in 2017 was 2.27 percent and 1.90 percent, respectively. Even during the difficult time of pandemic lockdown, India took care not to disturb the world food supply chain and continued to export, the government said.
Ministry of Agriculture has prepared a comprehensive action plan for the promotion of Agri trade; the twofold approach focuses on boosting Agri Export with emphasis on value addition and action plan for Import Substitution. Recently, the Agriculture sector has witnessed a series of reforms, giving more choices to the farmers to sell their produce at competitive rates.
To mention a few, the Export strategy focuses on the export promotion of fast-evolving niche markets of Wellness food/ Health-conscious food/nutraceuticals, Development of “Brand India” in campaign mode to help penetration into new foreign markets and of new products which automatically translates into higher value realization, Gulf countries have been identified as focus destination to increase the market share which is a strong market for India though presently India caters to only 10-12% share of their total imports. A product-market matrix has been made containing a list of products of strength that could be expanded in new geographies and a list of known markets which can be introduced with newer products.
At the behest of the Department of Agricultural Cooperation & Farmers’ Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture, product-specific Export Promotion Forums have been created to lead Agri exports to new heights. Each Export Promotion Forum shall be having exporters of the related commodity as its members along with official members representing concerned Ministries/Departments of the Central and State Governments. Chairman APEDA shall be the chairman of each of these forums. The forums will meet at least once every two months, to discuss recommendations on issues pertaining to the export.
The recommendations of the forum will be placed in the product committee / Authority of APEDA. The Forum will keep in close contact with the concerned organization of the Ministry of Agriculture such as MIDH, Extension, NPPO, etc., DGFT, Ministry of Civil Aviation, MoFPI, etc. to further the interest of agricultural export.
