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Computer literacy: It's a huge market out there

Vipin Kumar

NEW DELHI, Dec. 14

WITH various State Governments going on an overdrive to promote computer literacy, especially among school children, yet-another booming market has sprung up for companies in the IT education business.

The who's who of IT education in India -- from biggies such as NIIT and Aptech to firms like IEC Softwares -- are now vigorously partnering with States to roll out one programme after another.

These corporate-Government joint initiatives are happening not in the techno-savvy southern States alone. A number of States in the North too, such as Rajasthan, are aggressively launching schemes in their bid to remain on the right side of the digital d ivide.

Companies too have cottoned on and are devising special packages to address this segment. For example, NIIT recently carved out a new division called K-12 to focus its attention on this area.

"In the US, familiarity with computers happens in school, which was not happening in India so far. These initiatives by States should go a long way in addressing this," says Mr Ganesh Natarajan, Aptech President and CEO. The company is implementing over 12 projects in various States and expecting a revenue of Rs 100 crore in 9-12 months.

Mr Natarajan estimates that the initiatives by States should result in an addressable, readymade market worth Rs 200-250 crore over the next year. NIIT's Mr L. Balasubramanian, who heads the K-12 division, feels that the market potential could grow to th ousands of crores in the years to come as there are about six lakh Government schools.

NIIT has bagged projects in Tamil Nadu worth Rs 64 crore and in Karnataka worth Rs 148 crore and is in the process of joining hands with Punjab for a similar venture. While the Tamil Nadu project is to cover 371 schools, the Karnataka project envisages i mparting IT education in 700 schools. The tenure of both the projects is five years.

Even a relatively smaller player like the Delhi-based IEC Softwares is keenly pushing many projects in association with States. It has signed up a Rs 250-crore project with Madhya Pradesh to provide computer education in 189 colleges and 2,000 schools in the State over a period of three years.

"We are also implementing a similar package for the Rajasthan Government," says Mr S.L. Gupta, Chairman of IEC Softwares. "We are doing a Rs 8-crore project there to cover 56 colleges," he says, adding that the company has over Rs 300 crore worth project s in hand.

The pattern of all these projects are simple: the respective State Government plays the role of facilitator; the companies which have bagged the orders set up the infrastructure, prepare the curriculum and appoint instructors.

This means that the State is saved of major expenditure in the form of investment in infrastructure facilities and salaries to instructors. While in some States the Government subsidises the fee, in others, a nominal fee is collected from students.

As the fee collected is low, how does the company benefit from such projects? "The money is in the numbers," says Mr Natarajan. These projects give us a readymade market in huge numbers."

According to Mr Gupta of IEC, this large volume comes without having to shell out any money on advertisement and marketing, which otherwise eats up about 20 per cent of a company's revenues.

Meanwhile, this kind of computer education projects are not limited to schools alone. The Central Government is now embarking on a major programme to impart IT education to all its employees. As this will also be done in partnership with the private sect or, more business is on the way for savvy corporates.