While the country has scored better in terms of political and regulatory environment (78th position), it fares worse in terms of business and innovation environment (110th).
In terms of infrastructure, it is worse still at the 114th place, while it ranked very high at the 8th place in terms of affordability.
India also fares poorly on sub-indices for skills and individual usage. “Lack of infrastructure and low levels of skills among the population (101st) remain the key bottlenecks to widespread ICT adoption, especially in terms of individual usage (120th),” the WEF report said.
It further noted that a third of the Indian population is still illiterate and a similar share of youth is not enrolled in secondary education.
“Only 15 out of 100 households have access to the internet, and mobile broadband remains a privilege of the few, with only 5.5 subscriptions for every 100 people,” it said, pointing that the divide between well-connected metropolitan hubs and remote rural areas persists.
In 2015, India launched the Digital India programme, which aims to close this gap by fostering investment in digital infrastructure, improving digital literacy and increasingly providing online services to citizens.
India's performance in terms of providing online services and allowing e-participation has so far been in line with that of peer countries, but is still far from the global best, it said. (SH)
Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India