The centre and the state governments are expected to increase their spending on information technology (IT) by 9.5 percent in 2017 over 2016, according to Gartner, US-based IT research and advisory organisation.

With this, it is expected that India will spend spend $7.8 billion (Rs 52,242 crore approximately) on IT this year, it says. This forecast includes spending on internal services, software, IT services, data centre systems, devices and telecom services.

The software segment, the report said, includes enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), customer resource management (CRM), desktop, infrastructure, vertical specific software and other application tools.

The software segment is expected to grow 15.7 percent in 2017 to reach $1 billion (Rs 6,697 crore approx.). Desktop will be the fastest growing segment with 16 percent growth in this category, according to Gartner.

IT services (which includes consulting, software support, business process outsourcing, IT outsourcing, implementation, and hardware support) is expected to grow 14.6 percent in 2017 to reach $2 billion (Rs 13,399 crore approx.), making it the largest segment within the IT spending category.

Devices spending will grow 12.7 percent in 2017 to reach $917 million (Rs 6,143 crore approx.). Devices refer to printers, copiers, MFPs, mobile devices, PCs and tablets.