Indian DEITY reveals Internet of Things policy

The marvellously-named Indian Department of Electronics and Information technology - DEITY - has created a policy that calls for the nation to create an Internet of Things (IoT) industry worth US$15 billion by 2020.

The policy [PDF] looks to leverage other national efforts, including the effort to create 100 “smart” cities across India and the Digital India e-government plan.

The former is expected to see India adopt IoT technologies, while the latter is expected to provide industry development impetus.

Like almost anything to do with the IoT, the plan uses a very broad definition of the concept. In this case, imagined applications include water quality monitoring, a “National Advance Seismic System”, aged care including fall detection, a project to “build a wearable device for women, child and old people safety in public”, building monitoring, detection of CO<sup2</su> emissions by industry and even a “solar-powered trash receptacle and trash compactor that alerts sanitation crews of municipal authorities, when it is full.”

There's also the idea of “logistics chain managed by government for essential food items to ensuring need-based re-filling and reduction in wastage of food items.”

DEITY thinks it can get this done with public-private-partnerships that establish centres of excellence, investment in IoT labs, prodding academics and the universities they inhabit to research IoT and by incubating startups and helping them to network.

India thinks that by 2020 those efforts will give it five to six per cent of the global IoT market and a domestic population of 2.7 billion connected devices.

India has form in growing technology industries quickly, as its business process outsourcing efforts demonstrate amply. The nation's manufacturing ambitions haven't panned out so well, with the nation's poor road and rail networks often blamed. New prime minister Narendra Modi has pledged to spend up big on roads, railways, ports and electricity infrastructure . An IoT push could help those ambitions, as well as India's desire to be a player in the sensor-tising of the world. ®