Trace the evolution of India's computer and electronics policy from the 1950s to the establishment of the Department of Electronics in 1970. How did this institutional foundation shape India's later IT-services boom?

India's computing story began in 1956, when the HEC-2M — the first electronic computer in the country — was installed at the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta [3]. From this scientific beginning, policy moved steadily towards state-led self-reliance, creating capability that later enabled, but did not by itself produce, the IT-services boom.

Phase I: Scientific adoption (1950s–early 1960s)

• HEC-2M served planning-era statistical and scientific computation, and ISI became India's first centre for trained programmers [3].
• Computing remained confined to a few elite research institutions rather than industry.

Phase II: From committee to institution (1963–1971)

• The Bhabha Committee (1963) produced India's first blueprint for producing and using electronics, including computers [4].
• Its recommendations yielded the Department of Electronics (1970) [2] and the Electronics Commission (1971), with ECIL as the public-sector manufacturer [4].
• Policy prioritised indigenous manufacture: foreign firms' share of domestic electronics output fell from about 10% (1972) to about 3% (1977) [4].

How the foundation shaped the boom

• It built human capital — a generation of engineers trained within public institutions and IITs [4].
• Protection, and IBM's exit in 1978, vacated the market in which domestic computer and software firms learned to stand alone [4].
• DoE later became the nodal ministry lineage culminating in MeitY [2].

Where the foundation fell short

• Total self-reliance meant slow supply and ageing machines in a fast-changing technology [4].
• The decisive opening came later: the Computer Policy (1984) and Software Policy (1986) permitted software development and export over data-communication links, ending dependence on "body-shopping" [1].

Thus the 1970s built institutions and skills, while the 1980s reforms supplied the market that converted them into exports. The same sequencing lesson — capability plus demand — should guide today's semiconductor and AI skilling missions.