Mumbai, Feb 23 (IANS): Government IT spending in India is set to total $7.3 billion in 2021, a growth of 9.4 per cent from 2020, according to a forecast by Gartner on Tuesday.

The first ever digital census this year will be pivotal in increasing government IT spending in India.

"The government in India will shift from being a cautious spender to opening the fiscal floodgates in 2021," Apeksha Kaushik, Principal Research Analyst at Gartner, said in a statement.

"Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, Indian government's digital transformation projects were sidelined in 2020. The weakening economy forced the Indian government into reducing their IT spend across all segments last year."

However, in 2021, the Indian government's Atmanirbhar Bharat, Make in India and Digital India initiatives will take centre stage.

The software segment, which includes application, infrastructure, and vertical-specific software, will experience the strongest growth in 2021, Gartner said.

In 2021, government budgets in India will continue to address recovery and growth needs of communities and businesses with cost optimisation in focus.

"Adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), cloud services and blockchain will be major focus areas for the Indian government with more emphasis on ethics and privacy," said Kaushik.

"Investments to address digital equity, creating India specific standards for 5G and granting access to remote citizen services will be critical."