India to be made IT superpower: Vajpayee
From Gaurav Choudhury
Tribune News Service

HYDERABAD, Nov 22 — The government will soon unveil a package of policy initiatives for increase in the penetration of personal computers, promotion of computer-based education and development of trained manpower to meet the growing needs of software and hardware industries, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said here today.

Within these would be the initiative to make available several hundred thousand multi-media education PCs, through "Vidyarthi Computer Scheme", "Shikshak Computer Scheme" and "School Computer Scheme", Mr Vajpayee said while inaugurating Hi-Tec City, an integrated techno township on the outskirts of Hyderabad, today.

Underlining the importance of the telecom sector for progress in other sectors, the Prime Minister said the new telecom policy would be guided by national interests and "not departmental or any other interests".

The new telecom policy would have twin objectives. On the one hand, it would focus on accelerated growth of telecom services in rural areas. On the other hand, it would also create a competitive and well-regulated environment to harness the full benefits of convergence between telecom, IT, media and consumer electronics, Mr Vajpayee said.

The government had constituted a high-powered committee under the chairmanship of the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Mr Jaswant Singh, to make recommendations for the proposed new telecom policy. It may be recalled the Prime Minister had announced last month a comprehensive new telecom policy would be put in place within three months.

The committee would also look into various issues, including problems arising out of the licence fee structure, restrictive inter-connectivity rules that hinder the growth of telecom services and Internet and issues relating to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

"India cannot become an IT superpower unless we rapidly expand and modernise our telecom infrastructure to match the best in the world", Mr Vajpayee said.

Pointing out that this sector had "inherited an extremely problematic legacy" because of wrong policies and equally wrong implementation by previous governments, Mr Vajpayee said the present government had the "necessary political will to end the deadlock in this sector". The government would remove obstacles in the path of stalled investments by domestic and foreign telecom companies, he added.

The second IT task force report, which was an action plan for making India a global centre for hardware manufacturing and exports, was currently being examined by a ministerial committee.

"I assure you that the government will end the long neglect and policy confusion that India’s hardware industry has suffered from in the past", Mr Vajpayee said.

The first report of the task force, focusing mainly on software development and exports, had already been accepted by the government and was being implemented. The report had set a target of software exports of $ 50 billion by the year 2008, he said.

Striking a note of caution, Mr Vajpayee said the benefits of IT could not remain confined to "the well-off and the English educated in urban areas".

"There is an urgent need to increase the use of computers in Indian languages", he said adding that there was also the need to create more and more Indian content, both in English and in Indian languages on the Internet.

There was also the need to vastly increase the application of IT for rural development and agriculture. "One of the major factors behind the current situation of prices of essential commodities has been the lack of timely information on weather and crop condition", he said. The government had been considering the establishment of a national centre for crop forecasting based on a widespread IT infrastructure.

Another area needing urgent attention was the increased use of IT to improve the government-citizen interface. "File movement should be faster and transparent so that citizens get a timely and useful response to their needs without the usual bureaucratic harassment and frustration", Mr Vajpayee said.

Complimenting the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr Chandrababu Naidu, for continuous focused attention to information technology, Mr Vajpayee said, "Hi-Tec City is a symbol of his vision and commitments", adding, "I am confident that Andhra Pradesh itself will soon become Cyber Pradesh".

Hi-Tec City (Hyderabad Information Technology Engineering Consultancy City) is an integrated techno-township designed to serve the business and social needs of those engaged in information technology.

Involving a total project outlay of Rs 1500 crore, it has been established through a joint venture (L & T Infocity Ltd) between the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) and L & T. The APIIC holds 11 per cent stake in the JV while remaining the 89 per cent is held by L & T.

The first phase of the project, which was inaugurated by the Prime Minister today, has a floor area of 5,50,000 sq ft with a total outlay of Rs 20 crore. More than 70 per cent of the space of Hi-Tec City Phase I (also called Cyber Towers) has already been booked by major companies, including Microsoft, Oracle and Metamor. The 10-storey complex has been completed in record time of 15 months.

The project once completed, is billed to be the biggest technology park in the entire continent and is expected to become a major focal point of IT and enabled services in the region. The overall employment on the completion of all the six phases of Hi-Tec City is estimated to exceed 2,50,000.