How Jio, UPI and 5G rewrote India's IT story
India's telecom and IT sectors have undergone a remarkable transformation, evolving from limited landlines to a global leader in mobile technology. Policy reforms in the 1990s, the rise of IT hubs like Bengaluru, and the disruptive entry of Jio in 2016 fueled this growth.
India's shift from a country where getting a landline took years to one with the largest and most affordable mobile and IT markets in the world is one of its most remarkable economic transformation stories.Over three decades, a mix of policy reforms, private sector disruption and the digital ambitions of a young population rewrote the nation's communications and technology story.
In the decades after independence, telecommunications were a government monopoly run by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). Landline connections were scarce, often requiring years of waiting, and penetration was mostly urban.The first major break came with the National Telecom Policy (NTP) of 1994, which opened the sector to private operators.On 31 July 1995, Union Communications Minister Sukh Ram made India's first mobile phone call to West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu. Mobile handsets were bulky, and calls cost up to Rs 16 per minute, putting them beyond the reach of most Indians.
The New Telecom Policy of 1999 introduced a revenue-sharing licence fee model, replacing high fixed fees that had burdened operators.The early 2000s saw the 'calling-party-pays' system introduced, tariffs drop sharply, and mobile phones shift from luxury to necessity.By 2003, India had over 33 million mobile subscribers, up from under a million in 1998.India's IT story began in the 1980s, with companies like TCS, Infosys and Wipro building software capabilities for overseas clients. The real acceleration came in the early 1990s, when economic liberalisation and global demand for cost-effective tech solutions converged.Multinationals such as Texas Instruments (set up in Bengaluru in 1985) and GE established captive centres. The Y2K bug crisis of 1998–99 became a turning point, with Indian firms fixing global code at scale, proving capability and reliability.Government initiatives, notably the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) scheme in 1991, provided infrastructure, duty-free imports and tax incentives to export-oriented IT units.Bengaluru emerged as the 'Silicon Valley of India,' thanks to its engineering institutions, favourable policies and a growing venture capital network.The Digital India programme, launched on 1 July 2015, aimed to make government services available electronically and expand digital access nationwide. Central to this was the creation of digital public infrastructure, Aadhaar (biometric identity, 2009), the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in 2016, and the PM-WANI scheme in 2020 for public Wi-Fi hotspots.These platforms transformed how Indians transact, authenticate identity and access services. UPI, for example, grew from 21 banks in 2016 to over 400 by 2024, processing billions of monthly transactions.The single biggest disruption came on 5 September 2016, when Reliance Jio launched nationwide 4G services with ultra-low data prices and free voice calls. Internet subscribers skyrocketed from 259 million in March 2016 to over 800 million by 2021, TRAI data shows.Data rates fell by over 90%, making India the world's largest consumer of mobile data.The 'Jio effect' catalysed growth in e-commerce, fintech, OTT entertainment and online education. A 2020 Institute for Competitiveness report estimated annual consumer savings of Rs 60,000 crore due to reduced data costs.India launched the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) in December 2021 to promote domestic chip manufacturing with incentives worth Rs 76,000 crore, aiming to reduce dependence on imports.On 1 October 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially launched 5G services. By early 2025, nearly every district in India had 5G coverage, supported by hundreds of thousands of base transceiver stations (BTS).The government's August 2022 spectrum auction and policy reforms accelerated rollout, enabling applications in IoT, AI and advanced manufacturing.From a single mobile call in 1995 to AI-driven 5G networks in 2025, India's telecom and IT story shows how liberalisation, technology and demographics can combine to completely rewire a nation's economic possibilities.
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