Human development and technology go hand in hand, claims N. Sivasailam

Technology and human development go hand in hand, N. Sivasailam, Additional Secretary (IT), Department of Telecommunications said, adding that in India the healthcare and education sector can reap most of the benefits of this collaboration."In human development, apart from Smart Cities projects in India, technology can play an important role in healthcare sector. It can address the whole issue of availability of generic drugs. It can enable quick access to healthcare," Sivasailam said here on Wednesday. He was addressing an event organised by the Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) on World Telecommunication and Information Society Day."Education is the other sector that can hugely get benefited from technology. Technology has opened opportunities for local skilling and lot of local job opportunities have opened up," Sivasailam added. He said when 5G telephony system will come to India it will largely depend on people. "India is currently the world's second-largest telecommunications market and it is only growing stronger," said Rajan S Mathews, Director General, COAI."By 2020, the contribution of mobile industry to the country's GDP will increase to 8.2 percent from the current 6.5 percent. It is also expected to generate four million direct and indirect jobs over the next five years. Globally, we will also have between 26 billion and 50 billion Internet-connected devices by 2020." he added.In India, over Rs 9,27,000 crore have been invested so far by the telecom service providers in building telecom infrastructure. The total Internet subscribers in India are 261.31 million as per Telecom Regulatory Authority of India data.