Impact of IT industry

I am part of a generation that has seen the growth of IT industry. Especially in India, I saw it grow at an enormous pace in the last 20 years.

Though IT industry started cropping earlier than that it was around the year 1995 when I saw a majority of my generation moving towards IT from the core Finance and Mechanical Industry.

I remember the focus was more on getting a Computer Science group in your higher education. The focus on Biology or Commerce had taken a back seat. Most of the parents would force their child to study well to secure a place in Computer Science Group. Unfortunately, I believe the crux was not to excel in the subject matter but to get a better earning opportunity. Even in engineering the focus started slowly moving from mechanical to computer science. Any which ways IT did grow at a great pace in the country.

From an agriculture based economy today India has become an emerging IT industry. Though agriculture and manufacturing industry still holds a firm place but that is only due to the large prevalence of unskilled labour. Even today the trend is towards IT if you are person who is educated well.

The flourish of IT industry has its own advantages and disadvantages. Due to the growth there are lot of positives. Indians are going around the world and are getting placed well due to knowledge in this domain. What better example than Sundar Picchai who is the current CEO of Google. It has put India in the world map as one of leading IT domain knowledge.

Due to arrival of lot of MNC IT companies the infrastructure has grown tremendously. Small towns have become big cities after arrival of IT cities. Cities like Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad has grown tremendously due to IT.

The IT growth has brought in a lot of job opportunities. This has helped in reducing the unemployment index to a great extent. In the shadows of IT industry other industries like BPO and KPO have grown quickly as well.

This growth has had an impact on other industries as well. The real estate sector has grown in IT prone cities to accommodate the people who are living in these cities due to IT jobs. The purchasing power has increased due to the high salaries offered in this sector when compared to other sectors. Lot of international food chains have arrived in India. Lot of other industries like transport, manufacturing have also benefited as the spending power has increased.

On the downside though, it has shown that more people are migrating to cities which means villages are not having enough skilled people to promote agriculture which is the backbone of this country. There has been a lot of exploitation happening due to unrealistic prices for commodities. Especially the real estate which has increased the price so much that people from other sectors who could earlier afford places in these IT based cities could no longer afford it and were forced to areas far away from the cities.

I strongly believe that we need to maintain a balance between all industries for a healthier society.

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.