NEW DELHI: Internet apps added Rs 1.4 lakh crore to India's GDP in 2015-16, says a study released on Friday . It expects the figure to grow to Rs 18 lakh crore by 2020.Union minister of communications Manoj Sinha , who released the study on Friday , said since data is going to drive the industry more than voice, the ministry has also initiated a move to relook at the current Telecom Policy through public consultation.The study conducted by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (Icrier) and the Broadband India Forum , finds that nearly half of the contribution of the internet to the economy would be due to apps.“The internet economy could contribute up to $537.4 billion to India's GDP in 2020, of which a minimum of $270.9 billion could be attributed to apps,“ says the study , using various economic analyses and logical regression models to isolate and calculate the impact of apps on the Indian economy . It has evaluated this impact across 19 telecom circles (India has 22) which are contiguous with state boundaries. The study is called “Estimating the value of new generation internet bases applications in India.““Since not all Internet usage is app based, we moderate the estimate using assumptions on contribution of apps to the Internet economy in India,“ says the study. Apps or applications, are mostly used on smartphones, to perform specialized tasks. The study measures internet usage on the basis of the “virtual networking index“ forecasts of IT company Cisco “From a CISCO estimate, India's Internet traffic from non-PC devices was 28% of total Internet traffic in 2015. According to experts, 70% of mobile or non-PC traffic could be attributable to apps implying that apps contributed a minimum of $20.4 billion to India's economy in the year 2015-16,“ says the study , adding that this estimate is based only on internet-based apps. Including offline apps here can swing the figure higher.The Icrier forecasts are based on the assumption that today's “internet economy“ will remain the same in 2020.Newer apps, or new technology can skew the numbers. “In any case,“ says the study , “we can be sure that the Internet economy will magnify to at least 15% by 2020, with apps contributing at a minimum half of the value.“