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Gushing Ghosh

The final day of the NASSCOM'97 business conference here began with quite a stir as Department of Electronics Secretary Shyamal Ghosh rattled off a list of bright and shiny government proposals.

Ghosh, an Indian Administrative Services cadre and former director-general of foreign trade, was delivering the keynote address at the conference.

T O D A Y

• The guessing game • Production pains • Banking on tech • Gushing Ghosh

He was curt, if not cruel. "India stands at number 43 in IT competitiveness on a list of 53. Tremendous efforts need to be made to change this situation. A Fortune survey has revealed that among the Asian tigers, India has the lowest number of Internet users, the lowest ISPs, the lowest penetration of telephones and PCs, and to top it all, the highest regulations imposed."

But he has a kind heart, so: "What really matters, however, is that despite these drawbacks, the industry does have a 0.8 per cent share of the global market. Some initiative has been taken toward product development and R&D centres. But there are danger signals emerging from an erosion of competitive spirit because of the real estate prices, high turnover of manpower and increased cost of domestic tariff for lease lines."

He had suggestions too: "Could we look at some strategic alliances and match-make Indian and European companies?" he asks.

Ghosh then went on to list some initiatives, all of which have been put in front of the government and decisions are being awaited. These are:

1. Developing human resource, for one.
2. Framing of a programme to address the need to enhance software. Then there's the 'DoE squared', which is the Department of Electronics and the Department of Education, working together. Then there has to be a strengthening of the IITs, regional colleges, state engineering colleges…
3. There are plans for setting up a National Institute for Software Research, a DoE sponsored project built on the lines of the National Institute of Fashion Design. This will put India on the world map.
4. State governments of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are planning to set up IT institutes on a similar line.
5. DoE and NASSCOM, together, will set up an Indian Institute of Computer Professionals which will have a main centre and regional centres.
6. A Java Competency Centre will be set up at CMC's R&D unit in Hyderabad where advanced training in Java will be provided. The centre will be set up at a cost of Rs 43 million by CMC, Sun Microsystems, DoE and NASSCOM by the end of this year.

In the domestic market, Ghosh announced a few more plans for the IT industry:

1. Work is on to create a national high-speed network backbone. The government and the DoE are overseeing this so that connectivity among major cities will be a reality by 2000. There is an effort to increase the backbone by increasing the bandwidth.
2. Then there is the opening up of the Internet market. A salient feature here is that license fee for ISPs will be waived for two years. Interconnectivity problems will also be addressed. The US Supreme Court has just said that cyberspace cannot be controlled, what will the implications of this be for us.
3. PC penetration requires over 10 times the effort. For this software needs to be localised and prices will have to come down along with the duties.
4. A computerised Government of India is on the anvil. The AP government has asked for more transparency, we will watch them and then move into other states.
5. Cyber laws are needed. The Indian Penal Code will have to be reviewed. A comprehensive legislation, which may take time, has to be formed or amendments to the relevant laws will have to be made.
6. There is a need for financial support. Amendments in bills regarding the working capital, venture capital and sweat equity will be made.
7. More Software Technology Park units need to be set up. Madras, Vishakapatnam, New Bombay and Chandigarh are already asking for STPs and earth stations. The DoE will provide some seed capital and with the help of the KU band we can reduce costs and disperse data easily.

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