- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
