New Delhi, Jun 16 (IANS): The government spending on information technology products and services in India will touch $7 billion this year -- an increase of 3.1 percent from 2015 -- a new report said on Thursday.

“Government spending on software will total $938 million in 2016, a 9.9 percent increase from 2015,” said Moutusi Sau, principal research analyst at market research firm Gartner. He added that the software market will be led by growth in infrastructure.

IT services -- which include consulting, software support, business process outsourcing, IT outsourcing, implementation, and hardware support -- are expected to grow 8.8 percent in 2016 to reach $1.6 billion with the business process outsourcing (BPO) sub-segment growing by 22 percent, said the report.

Telecom services will be a $1.5 billion market, with the mobile network services sub-segment, recording the fastest growth of 3.5 percent in 2016 to reach $793 million.

Internal services (salaries and benefits paid to the information services staff of an organisation) will grow 5.8 percent in 2016 to reach $1.5 billion.

“The ‘Digital India’ initiative continues to be drive investments in the government, led by access of government services on mobile devices (part of the mobile government), and expansion on broadband services,” Sau added.