Union Cabinet approves software product policy

Union Cabinet approves software product policy

1. The Union Cabinet has approved the National Policy on Software Products 2019. The policy aims to Develop India as a software product nation. It also aims to align with other Government initiatives such as Start-up India, Make in India and Digital India, Skill India etc. so as to create Indian Software products Industry of USD 70-80 billion by 2025.
2. The policy proposes an outlay of Rs.1500 Crore to implement the programmes/ schemes envisaged under this policy over the period of 7 years. The fund is divided into Software Product Development Fund (SPDF) and Research & Innovation fund.
3. The policy has five missions: a) promote the creation of a sustainable Indian software product industry, driven by intellectual property (IP) which would lead to a ten-fold increase in India share of the Global Software product market by 2025, b) nurture technology start-ups in software product industry, including such technology start-ups in Tier-II and Tier-III towns & cities to generate direct and in-direct employment for 3.5 million people by 2025, c) create a talent pool for software product industry by up skilling IT professionals, motivating school and college students and generating specialized professionals that can provide leadership, d)  build a cluster-based innovation driven ecosystem by developing 20 sectoral and strategically located software product development clusters. These clusters would have integrated ICT infrastructure, marketing, incubation, R&D/ test beds and mentoring support, and e) set up National Software Products Mission which would evolve and monitor scheme & programmes for the implementation of the policy.