West Bengal has always been regarded as one of India’s states with high intellectual capital and with immense potential to emerge as one of the most attractive investment destinations for the ICT sectors.
The State Government is aware that a well-planned and effective strategy is required to encourage additional investments from large IT companies, to revitalize and tap the talent of home-grown entrepreneurs in the small and medium sector and to enable the spread of the industry to Tier II and Tier III locations. There is also the necessity to move up the value-chain from merely providing services, to the development of products and registering Intellectual Property Rights.
Moreover the creative tradition of the State in different fields of entertainment-related IT and ITeS activities e.g. animation can significantly help it in attaining its vision of becoming one of the leading States in India in the IT & ITeS and ESDM sectors and to enable West Bengal to transform into a knowledge-driven welfare society with extensive use of IT & ITeS in governance and in the daily lives of the people of the State.
Given this background, the objective of this study is to examine the extent and development of ICT diffusion in the state of West Bengal by analysing the availability of state wide ICT infrastructure and ICT adoption indicators. The report was released in the 12th edition of CII ICT East 2013 held on 6-7 August 2013 at Kolkata.