Union Minister of State for Information Technology, Sachin Pilot has released a report which says that India suffers from the issue of low internet literacy even in the urban areas. Pilot released the report `Innovation In Telecom' by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC). According to the report, Internet literacy is quite low even in the urban regions, and so is the usage. It will take a generation for data usage to pick up. Non-voice services, including value added services and SMS form just five to 15 per cent of total operator revenues, which goes to over 50 per cent for operators in major countries. The number for mobile data would be still lower. Rural teledensity has still not reached the targets and the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund created for the telecom industry has not been utilised adequately. Most product innovations still originate from the Western economies while Indian companies seem to be content adopting them. One of the reasons is lack of proper research infrastructure, education and investment.
The report explains, "Only about 25 per cent graduates in India have the skills that deem them fit to work for multinational companies. This is because most institutes in India are built with the idea of meeting the demand for graduate education, focused on enrolling as many students as possible."
