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National Policy on Software Products (2019)

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has introduced “National Policy on Software Products” with the aim to develop India as a global software product hub. This policy seeks to develop a conducive ecosystem to transform the predominantly service-oriented IT/ ITES industry into a technology-oriented products industry. Let us look in detail about the National Policy on Software Products (2019) in this article.

Objectives of the Policy

The following are the objectives of the National Policy on Software Products:

• To promote the making of a sustainable Indian software product industry, driven by the intellectual property (IP), directing to a ten-fold increase in the value of the Global Software product market.
• To nurture 10,000 technology startups in the software product industry, including 1000 such technology startups in Tier-II and Tier-III towns and cities and generating direct and indirect employment for 3.5 million people.
• To up-skill, a million IT professionals, motivating 1 lakh students and producing 10,000 leaders for the Indian industry.
• To create a cluster-based innovation-driven ecosystem by building 20 sectoral and strategically located software product development clusters that having integrated ICT infrastructure, marketing, incubation, R&D or testbeds and mentoring support. 
• In order to evolve and monitor all the schemes and programmes for the implementation of the policy, the National Software Products Mission will be set up with the participation from the Government, Academia and Industry.

Strategies

Promoting Software Products Business Ecosystem

An Indian Software product registry will be formulated through industry ownership. This will act as common equipment of Indian Software Products thereby providing a trusted trade environment. A conducive environment that will be created in order to facilitate the active participation of software companies in Capital Market. A Single Window platform that will be established for the facilitation of the Indian software product industry in fast-tracking legal and administrative issues regarding,

• Import and export 
• Opening and closure of software product enterprises. 

A classification system for the Indian software products will be evolved through a standard HS code. The model HS code will be subcategorized based on the software products type, its inter-linkages with the other economic sectors, including al the services and hardware manufacturing. Such model classification will facilitate the tracking and easing of export of such products. This will also support evolving statistical data for further promotion of particular sectoral software products. The Indian Software Product Companies that are allowed to set off the tax payable, if any, on the investments that are made (on an accrued basis) in R&D of the indigenous software products. 

Promoting Entrepreneurship and Innovation for Employment 

In order to build a conducive ecosystem, a programme of incubation that would be initiated to sustain at least 10,000 software product startups, thereby generating direct and indirect employment for 1 million persons. These startups would be targeted to be set up in Tier-II and Tier-III town and cities. The programme will provide the following,

• Technical and Infrastructure assistance
• Mentoring Support
• Seed Fund
• R&D and Testing facilities
• Marketing and Branding support

The Government has set up to Rs. 500 crore to support the research and innovations in institutes of higher learning, with the objective to support industry-academia research. 20 challenge grants that would be initiated to promote the industry to tackle all the issues associated with pressing societal needs such as sanitation and healthcare. A centre of excellence that would be set up to exactly promote the design and development of the Indian software products. The Policy envisions the development of an “upgradable” infrastructure to support software product startups to identify and tackle cyber vulnerabilities.

Human Resource Development

The policy enables students of professionals of the country to have feature-ready skills and also acknowledges that the existing courses that need to be revised. It intends for the development of short term skill programs and national level competency tests that would be developed.

Promotion of Trade

The software product registry would be integrated with the Government e-market. This Policy declares that the industry will be encouraged to develop and use open APIs for improving the interoperability of software products and enable incremental innovation in India. Indian software products that would be given preference through the Government procurement in accordance with the Public Procurement. Indian software products that would be showcased abroad through several events and specialised infrastructure to be set up in India and abroad. Further, Indian software products that would be integrated into India’s foreign aid programs. The industry will be encouraged to create products that would support people to overcome language barriers so that all sections of the Indian people are included in this digital boom.

Implementation Mechanism 

The implementation of this policy is done by the MeitY through the initiation of appropriate programmes and schemes, as per the recommendation of the NSPM. The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) under the MeitY’s organizations, as that would take a lead role besides the National Informatics Centre(NIC), Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), Industry or Industry bodies and Higher Education Research Institutes.