Indian govt's IT spending to reach $9.5 bn in 2022

• Global government IT spending is likely to reach $565.7 bn in 2022

• Spending on telecom services is set to decrease in 2022

• Anything-as-a-Service (XaaS) is gaining popularity across govt organizations

New Delhi: The government IT spending in India is likely to reach $9.5 billion in 2022, an increase of 12.1 per cent from last year, a new report said on Monday. Software will continue to be the highest growing segment in India this year, followed by IT services.

"Contrary to the worldwide spending, all segments will experience growth in 2022 in India," said Apeksha Kaushik, principal analyst at Gartner. Now, governments are executing innovative activities by harnessing technology to streamline digital services, advance automation processes and evolve citizen experiences and building a data fabric. Global government IT spending is likely to reach $565.7 billion in 2022, an increase of 5 per cent from 2021.

Continuing the trend from 2021, software is forecast to record the strongest growth across all segments in 2022. As legacy modernization continues to be a priority in government organizations, growth in the data center systems segment will continue to slow through the forecast period, the report mentioned.

"Governments are executing innovative activities by harnessing technology to streamline digital services, advance automation processes and evolve citizen experiences," said Daniel Snyder, director analyst at Gartner.

Spending on telecom services is set to decrease in 2022 as governments reduce spending on expensive legacy systems in favour of digital service delivery models. Anything-as-a-Service (XaaS) is gaining popularity across government organizations as it provides better return on investment normalising IT spend over time making budgeting for IT more predictable.

"The pandemic sped up public-sector adoption of cloud solutions and the XaaS model for accelerated legacy modernization and new service implementations," said Kaushik. With the ongoing talent challenges facing organizations, XaaS makes it easier for government organizations to find the right talent via XaaS operating models.