Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Contribution in Information Technology

Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee continues to be on life support system since Wednesday and as per hospital sources at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) his condition “is very critical”.

Here’s we have the contribution and achievements of Vajpayee as the Prime Minister in Information Technology sector:

Telecom revolution

The Vajpayee government's New Telecom Policy unleashed the telecom revolution in India by replacing fixed license fees for telecom firms with a revenue-sharing arrangement. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd was created to separate policy formulation and provision of service.

The creation of the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal also separated the government's regulatory and dispute settlement roles. The government ended the monopoly of Videsh Sancha.

The Information Technology Act, 2000

The Information Technology Act, 2000  (also known as ITA-2000, or the IT Act) is an Act of the Indian Parliament (No 21 of 2000) notified on 17 October 2000. It is the primary law in India dealing with cybercrime and electronic commerce. The bill was finalised by group of officials headed by then Minister of Information Technology Pramod Mahajan.

Massive Software Export

During Atal Bihari Vajpayee's tenure, nearly 85% of sales was in the form of exported software services in 2003-04. In the boom years of the mid and late 1990s, software exports grew 50-60% annually and reached $6 billion by 2001.

Fast-tracking Bharat

Vajpayee's most memorable achievement was the ambitious roads projects he launched—the Goldern Quadrilateral and the Pradhanmantri Gramin Sadak Yojna. The Golden Quadrilateral connected Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai through a network of highways while the Pradhanmantri Gramin Sadak Yojna was planned as a network of all-weather roads for unconnected villages across India. Both the projects proved to be immense success and contributed to India's econom.