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T W E N T Y
t w o
I
n the last 20 months the Bharatiya Janata Party
(
BJP)
—
led coalition government has done an exceptional job in promoting Information
Technology (IT). In May 1998, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee set up the National
IT Task Force, which produced three ground-breaking reports that seem revolutionary. It
is in this context that the appointment of Mr. Pramod Mahajan as India’s first Minister
for IT assumes significance.
It may be argued that an IT Ministry is not required as it may bureaucratize the extremely
successful software industry. However, Mr. Mahajan will provide a non-conventional
approach to this emerging sector, which has now become a mantra for the Indian economy.
Take these figures. India’s IT industry is worth $6 billion (Rs. 25,000 crore) today as
compared to $40 million (Rs. 560 crore) a decade ago.
No industry has achieved so much global competitiveness, nor has any industry
created as many millionaires in such a short span of time. In 1998-99, 203 out of
the
Fortune 1000
corporations, two out of five) met their software requirements
from India. US customers bought 61 percent of software from India. In 1998-99,
India exported US$ 2.6 billion (Rs. 10,940 crore) worth of software and services to 91
countries around the world.
But the software industry feels more can be done. For starters, the government
should implement the task force’s recommendations. The first of the three reports
mentioned earlier has been accepted, and 50 of the 108 recommendations are already
at various stages of implementation. The second point is non-interference. The
government’s role should be to promote and facilitate infrastructure development.
It should also go into hyper-drive to create the national Internet backbone by
accelerating the drive to set up an information infrastructure with an extensive
fiber optic and wireless network to ensure fast penetration of the Internet, the
intranets and the extranets. In this connection, a national internet and high-speed
telecom backbone is a must.
Mid-Day November 26, 1999
Back to the Future
