Indian IT products should make waves globally: Prasad

Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday said he would consider India's IT initiatives a success if its products are adopted across the world, including in Europe and the US.

''I have seen IT evolution of India which follows the traditional pattern - from outsourcing to R&D and what not. They are important. They need to be promoted. But I will be the happiest and consider our IT initiative a success if your extraordinary potential propels products which are replicated and used in Asia, South-East Asia, Latin America, Europe and America,'' he said while addressing an event on Internet of Things (IoT) organised by industry body Nasscom in Bangalore.

Prasad said healthcare, education and agriculture must be the priority areas where benefits should be offered to the people.

He also said as per a study, IoT products will produce economic benefit of nearly $2 trillion by 2020.

''Forbes says that we will have 25 billion IoT connections by 2020. Cisco estimates 50 billion, and the revenue is going to be very, very exciting.

''As per Gartner, IoT will produce economic benefit of nearly $2 trillion by 2020 and Cisco estimates it will be $14 trillion.  Therefore, even economically, IoT products are going to be very win-win,'' he said.

Prasad said he was open to suggestions to leverage IoT skilling and also stressed on having higher human resource research and training in the area.

He also laid emphasis on using IoT for cyber security and said it should not be allowed to be abused by some people. Innovators should conduct research to develop a good ecosystem to further strengthen the whole architecture of cyber security, Prasad said.

''How can by innovation and research, we can develop a  good ecosystem to further strengthen the whole architecture  of cyber security, that is a very lurking area of concern,  where we have all to work collectively,'' he said. Talking about the government's initiatives for developing internet infrastructure, Prasad said as many as 250,000 gram panchayats will be connected with optical fibre network.

When the NDA government came to power, only 358 km of  optical fibre were laid, but in close to two and half years, as many as 1.23 lakh km of optical fibre have been laid in the country and the process is going on, the minister said.

''We had 80,000 common service centres. Now we have scaled up to 200,000. We are going to scale it up to 250,000 ...,'' he said.

Prasad also said his ministry is digitising the post office network. ''We have 50,000 post offices in the country. More than 25,000 already have come under core banking solution and we  are going to give hand-held devices to 1.30 lakh rural postmen for doing internet banking, insurance services and all,'' he said.