IT Action Plan (Part III)
Long Term National IT Policy

24. A High level Institutional framework will be set up to coordinate and focus RD&D efforts in the country. This will help in facilitating the formulation and implementation of policy framework on on-going basis for RD&D in IT; to identify, coordinate implementation of mission mode foundation projects in products, processes and technologies; and to monitor and steer the RD&D activities on an on-going basis. This effort will be coordinated initially by the Government with active participation of Industry.

The government funded RD&D organizations (like DRDO, Space, Atomic Energy and others) will be encouraged to formulate long term and short term IT action plan and coordinate with the above mentioned Institution

25. Establish an Indian IT Design Council as a non-governmental, autonomous body that would

1. institute awards for excellence in R D & D in IT;
2. provide patenting assistance to developers;
3. institute a "Designed with Pride, in India" mark for IT products designed and developed in India;

26. This Mark could have different "levels" (such as Silver, Gold, and Platinum, depending on the extent of design content) 26. Set up an Information Technology Development Board (ITDB) as a non-governmental, autonomous body that would

1. Identify major mission mode projects in the country for building Information society and meeting the goals set for socio-economic development, as also with a view to developing Indian solutions and going up the value chain.
2. Build close links, to encourage collaborative activities, between academia, RD&D organizations and Indian IT industry.
3. Fund projects to help develop technology in high-risk areas.
4. Keep a watch on global IT technology trends and India’s competitiveness in the field.
5. Establish an appropriate funding mechanism for IT industry to draw support for RD&D.

27. A corpus of fund will be created by the Government of India on the lines of TDB. Such a corpus fund for various funding agencies could be through pure equity, convertibles, convertible preference shares, venture finance etc. to the companies at the seeding stage.

28. The following measures will be taken for the development of cutting edge manpower for RD&D:

1. Ensure that all undergraduate and postgraduate colleges offer a "minor" in IT, with a view to encourage development of IT based knowledge in various fields like medicine, commerce, economics, law, engineering, natural sciences etc. This will minimize their migration to basic programming field.

2. Institute fellowships and special faculty positions schemes with attractive remuneration to ensure that high quality manpower joins academics.

3. Create a national infrastructural research programme in Information Technology along the lines of existing programmes in Physical, Mathematical and Nuclear Sciences.
   
                -  To create R & D manpower and infrastructural facilities
                -  Should provide research positions in selected institutions and also                   provide fellowships for short and long durations in various
                    academic institutions

4. Create an appropriate funding mechanism to encourage basic and applied research in Academia and Research organizations

• To sustain R & D programmes in academia and research bodies (At present, no funds are available for basic research in IT-related areas.)

• To support open-ended research in IT-related areas

5. Design a set of measures to attract high quality students and faculty into IT-related areas.

• Encourage industry to set up attractive fellowship programmes for postgraduate studies in IT-related areas

• Encourage enhancement of qualifications and acquisition of R & D qualifications by R & D staff from the industry

6. Institute a national level collaboration programme between the academia and between the academia and the Industry.

• To support exchange programmes and collaborative activities between the academia and the Industry

29. Establish an Institute of System-Level Integration, which will carry out leading-edge research in SLI:

1. Establish an SLI think-tank;
2. Offer post-graduate degree course(s) in SLI.
3. Help create an Intellectual Property (IP) Bank in India;
4. Help India become a major source of IP.
5. Tie up with major semiconductor fabrication facilities world wide, to provide prototyping/production facilities and/or license the IP.

30. An agency to evolve Framework of standards will be set up, e.g., CMM, SPICE, ISO9000. This agency will also work for assessment and certification for compliance to standards and processes at affordable cost.

31.. Easily accessible Patenting cells will be set up to provide both consultancy and actual patenting/ copyrighting services to IT professionals.

32. Tool rooms and design support centers will be established for providing modern tools to the developer community at a reasonable cost. Further, ensure development of Indian tool sets for the above purpose. Initially the following areas will be considered:

1. Set up a Research Design & Development and dissemination center for CAD tools, in an existing institution with a view to provide state-of-the-art CAD tools to Indian Industry and explore global market for export of Indian CAD tools.
2. Set up educational/exploratory software development center with the responsibility of building educational/training software for giving advance training to scientist and engineers. Towards this end, the strategies recommended by the WESEE of the Ministry of Defence for setting up Software Tool Rooms and Design Support Services will be adopted.

33. Specific R&D projects will be instituted for IT interface and IT development tools in Indian languages. These projects will be used to set up Indian standards.

34. The following measures will be taken to boost growth of IT RD&D:

1. Allow Courier Services for imports with customs clearance at the addressee location. Further customs duty exemptions allowed to addressees that are EOUs or EHTPs, STPs, S-BITs.
2. Exempt all IT products that have been designed indigenously ( carrying "Designed with Pride, in India" mark), from all duties such as CED, CST, State ST, Octroi, Customs duty, CVD, AD etc..
3. Permit return of exported goods/software unsold through distribution network or permit sale of such goods on discount in the exported country.
4. Export revenues from royalty on Indian RD&D must be made tax-free to encourage intellectual capital creation.
5. RBI will authorize equity funding as well as Collateral-free loan at preferential interest rate for RD&D activities, leading to IT product development (as recommended for IT manufacture in the IT Action Plan - Part II) .
6. Such funding will be at internationally competitive interest rates to provide a level playing field.
7. RBI will be asked to notify guidelines to accept intellectual property as capital asset created via RD&D and be value based on the actual expenses for manpower, material and overheads.
8. Include Intellectual property at par with goods and services and allow capitalization on the above.
9. Allow stocking distributorships for imported components

35. Each Department will establish area specific Mission-mode programs, involving indigenous development and large scale deployment where private investment is not feasible due to high risk factors, with assured procurement commitments to the developers.

36. Purchase preference will be given in Government procurement, to the products carrying " Designed with Pride, in India" mark, as long as they meet the Quality and acceptance criteria.

37. The concept of National Technology Park (NTP) will be encouraged for R&D and promotion of key technologies to support establishment of National Information Infrastructure.

38. An Inter-department committee will be established to formulate policy and programme to evolve/adopt national standards for Information Technology in consultation with Bureau of Standards and will submit its report in 90 days.

39. To enable India to be a global competitor there is a need to enhance the velocity of business and quality of products; Towards this end, all PSUs, R&D Institutions and Technology Support agencies will apply techniques of resource planning and initiate time bound programmes to modernise their units.

40. Government recognises the need to manufacture IT products in consonance with the open system interconnect model. The Department of Electronics will institute measures for its revival and sustenance at world class level.

41. Appreciating the demand of rapid change in IT industry, the Government will suitably amend Laws to enable relocation, reorganisation and retraining in the IT industry.

42. To keep pace with the Rapid developments in the field of IT, the Government will revise procedures for clearance of IT related projects within 6 months of application.