Govt looking to seek bids for ways to estimate size of digital economy

The IT ministry has floated a request for proposal seeking bids from agencies to provide an estimation of the size of the digital economy by reviewing the existing literature and methodologies

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is looking at ways to estimate the size of the digital economy by identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) and gaps, and the possible solutions to grow it further.

The Centre has set a goal of reaching a $1 trillion digital economy in the next few years.

The IT ministry has floated a request for proposal seeking bids from agencies, which can work on providing an estimation of the size of the digital economy by reviewing the existing literature and methodologies across the globe and then suggest an appropriate framework for India, according to a report in The Economic Times (ET).

The bidder will have to submit “key performance indicators, data sources, methodology for regular data collection, estimate the size of the digital economy and jobs under digital economy” and make a projection of the size of the Indian economy in the next five years.

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An official said that as the measurement of the digital economy is not institutionalised and sectoral agencies do not either capture or report data that relates to the value-added on account of digital technologies, the IT ministry wants a separate exercise to be done.

The official added that there are various parameters that need to be captured by the new method such as the gross value added on account of digitisation of the economy, the change between July 2015 when the Digital India mission was started and now, and the impact of e-commerce and emerging technologies, according to the ET report.

Apart from measuring the state of the economy, the IT ministry also wants bidders to suggest ways to make projections for the growth of the digital economy from the current fiscal to 2029-30.

The IT ministry also wants the bidders to identify the gaps prevalent in the digital economy and suggest ways on how these can be plugged.