Manabendra Mukherjee, information technology minister for the eastern state of West Bengal, said the impact of IT on most people was "virtually nothing".

"In the case of information, communications and technology (ICT) the global position of India is commendable, Mukherjee told a summit on "IT for Common Man" in the IT hub of Bangalore.

"Still it contributes less than three percent of our gross domestic product and 16 percent of total exports," he added

In rural India, where more than 70 percent of the country's one billion people live, technology was often unheard of.

"It is an unfortunate reality that overall literacy is less than 70 percent. Only five percent of Indians can read and write English. Today 68.4 percent of webpages are in English," Mukherjee said.

"In the top ten languages of webpages there is no place for any Indian language. So 95 percent of Indians have no access to the global knowledge society," he said.

A personal computer in India costs about 24 months of the average income and the information spending per hundred people in the country is only 15.4 dollars compared to China's 38 dollars and US's 3,000 dollars, he said.

"So it is quite obvious that we are far from utilising information technology to uplift the common man's life."

Mukherjee said the Indian government needed to play a pivotal role in spreading technology awareness.

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