ICTS FOR THE BROADER DEVELOPMENT OF INDIA: AN ANALYSIS OF THE LITERATURE

ABSTRACT
India is known around the world for the success of its export-oriented ICT services industry,
but this paper asks whether ICTs have been valuable in providing broader development
benefits to all Indian citizens. Secondary data from academic articles with a focus on India
are used to analyse the contribution of ICTs towards the achievement of specific development
goals. The analysis shows that many ICT-based initiatives have taken place over the last
decade and some positive effects have resulted. However, the beneficiaries are almost always
not the poorest or most disadvantaged groups, it is hard to scale up initiatives to have effects
throughout India, and the need for attitudinal and institutional change remains a fundamental
problem. It is argued that ICTs should not be  seen as ‘silver bullets’ for development but
neither are they irrelevant. Rather, they are potentially important contributors towards
development in India but only through their integration in wider sociotechnical interventions.
Keywords: India; development; ICT; e-government; health information systems; telecentres;
mobile phones; civil society; empowerment; poor and disadvantaged group