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India may miss the next IT bus if…

George Iype in Hyderabad

Information technology leaders have warned that India will miss the next leap in infotech arena if the country does not get its act together on bandwidth, education and smart governance.

Participating in a session on "India and the IT revolution," during the Partnership Summit in Hyderabad on Wednesday, IT leaders said that one of the obstacles of growth in the IT sector in the county is the high cost of communication.

Echoing the sentiments of the IT industry, it was Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu who demanded: "The VSNL monopoly over international voice should go."

"The cost communication in India is one of the highest in the world -- about 4 to 14 times more expensive than costs in the United States. It is time India got its act together on bandwidth, education, smart government, twinning with private sector to realise the full potential of information technology," he said.

Stressing the importance of infrastructure for the growth of IT, Naidu said: "China has 125 million telephone lines compared to India's 30 million; 70 million mobile phones to India's 2.5 million and 20 million Internet users to India's 3.5 million users."

Calling for "convergence " to make India an IT superpower, Naidu said the ministries of Information Technology, Telecommunications and Information Broadcasting should work closely to achieve this.

Arjun Malhotra, chairman and CEO of the US-based TechSpan Inc, said that Indian businesses have the opportunity to go global, establishing a wider presence with a far reduced investment in infrastructure and cost associated with setting up a brick and mortar presence.

"Never before the cost of entering the global economy has been so favourable to Indian business community," Malhotra said, adding: "The Internet has levelled the playing field."

B Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam Computer Services, said that while the last decade was the decade of IT services from India, the next decade will be the years of IT-enabled services.

Estimating the tradable services segment of the world GDP at $29.5 trillion, Raju said that the Indian opportunity even at 5 per cent is $1.5 trillion. But the Satyam chief warned that this would be possible only with a quantum improvement in the hardware infrastructure.

"India should be always alive to the threats posed by China and Russia," Raju said. "The optimum utilisation of the opportunities in the services sector would create virtual vistas for Indians," he said adding that India would meet its potential in IT if government policies continue in the right direction.

According to Ramesh Vangal, chairman of the Singapore-based ATIndiainc LCC, there is an immense potential that is waiting to be tapped by India, in the area of business process outsourcing.

While lauding the progress made by India in IT, Vangal drew the issue of the digital divide and its social dimensions. "There are dangers of creating islands of prosperity. That is not just sustainable," Vangal warned.

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