Internet of Things (IoT), will help in the creation of 10-15 million jobs in India within the next few years, a senior bureaucrat said on Thursday.
“One of the reasons that IoT is particularly exciting for India is due to the job creation. It is estimated that about 10-15 million jobs will be created through IoT,” said Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary in the Department of Telecommunications, while speaking at the second edition of IoT India Congress 2017, organised by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).
She noted that a bulk of these jobs would be created by start-ups and not by large companies.
Sundararajan added that IoT will bridge the huge deficits that India has been facing in terms of infrastructure, agriculture and healthcare among others.
“Foreign players like Google and Facebook are also looking at investing in tower infrastructure and cloud-based services,” she opined.
Interestingly, according to research and consultancy firm Zinnov’s study in 2016, IoT is likely to lead to 94,000 job losses in the country by 2021, and a total of 120,000 jobs could be affected.
“The PM has made it clear at the Champions of Change event (held in New Delhi on August 17 for entrepreneurs) that the government’s role is only to facilitate and support. There’s no point in government actually getting into these areas,” Sundararajan told IANS on the sidelines of the event.
“There will be a regulatory framework set by the government which will outline how security will be dealt by the start-ups working on IoT,” she added.
She also said that India is becoming one of the world leaders in the IoT field.
“We have a lot of capability in software and most of the technological inventions are driven by software. If we marry that with the telecom capability, India can definitely be a leader in IoT space,” the telecom department official said.
The second edition of IoT India Congress 2017 is being held over two days starting Thursday.
It will explore the application of IoT in fields of healthcare, manufacturing, telecom, smart living, Ganga river rejuvenation and financial inclusion through the participation of companies in these sectors.
