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Bhavnagar, Surat, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Mehsana, Porbandar, Anand, Navsari,
Ankleshwar etc.
India is opening its gateways to foreign dotcom giants as well. The big names in
the Internet space such as Commerce One, Ariba, i2 among others, are coming
in not just with the necessary financial muscle, but also their “
e-vyapar
”
experience, their “best practices” and their innovative, Internet survival
strategies.
Gujarat has to take the lead in attracting these global majors to its
portals. Gujarat also has to plunge into the e-commerce arena with gusto, ensuring
that the maximum incentives for e-commerce come from the direction of the
Sabarmati. Gandhinagar should take the progressive stand of declaring a five-year
moratorium on e-commerce taxation. Both industry and government should join
hands to ensure that telecom infrastructure (a key prerequisite for
e-vyapar
)
is strong,
robust and reliable.
Already we have commitments from industry kingpins such as Reliance that would
be putting its might behind infrastructure development within Gujarat. The goal
then for us should be to provide, over the next two years, (as a constitutional right)
2
Mbps of bandwidth to every adult citizen. Had the Internet been available to the
stalwarts of India’s freedom movement, they would certainly have used it as a tool
to fight off not merely the foreign yoke, but also free India from the
fetters of economic hardship.
“
E-vyapar
”
would have been as much of a goal then as it is today. In
fact, we have to look at how we can complete the unfinished business
and achieve the unfulfilled promises of our earlier leaders. If we have to wipe the
tears off every Gujarati’s eye, we have to build some of the vision and foresight our
old-world champions had created for the nation. Let
e-vyapar
be Gujarat’s mantra
then for the next decade.
n
Gujarat has to take the lead in
attracting global majors
to its portals and plunge into the
e-commerce arena with gusto.
