While the IT task force has done a good job by emphasising the importance of this core industry, the approach to developing it should be more focussed. Instead of doing hundred things at the same time, IT industry can benefit if the four key steps are taken.The first is electronic governance. Providing access to the each individual through internet kiosks and district level access nodes might sound like a good idea, but it doesn't look very practical. Access to internet itself is not enough. The internet must emerge as a crucial convenience to Indians. Currently only a small portion of the information available on the internet is relevant to Indians. It can be used as an effective tool against red tape. There is little on the report on how to make internet content user and consumer friendly.Secondly the telecom backbone of the country has to be strengthened. No internet network can work without good telecom lines.A crucial issue is tax breaks to hardware industry. There is very little incentives forit. Finally, the IT industry cannot take off unless the number of IT professionals in India is increased. India needs one dedicated world class software university. Setting up one college in every state will dilute focus and it will be difficult to maintain quality. What is needed is one university which will offer the best IT training to students from across the country. Like the IITs began by offering the best engineering education, there can be one IT university with links to the industry.Efforts have to be made to make India an attractive software destination for MNCs. If Singapore can sell itself as a complete tourism destination, so can India with its manpower and efficient telecom infrastructure. Instead of sending all our professionals abroad, off-shore development should be encouraged in a major way. Again the report does not spell out a road map for this. Money has to be allocated to tackle this issue. Unfortunately, the only way to describe the current report of 108-point wish list isfrivolously ambitious. Let us look at the issues in detail. The return on investments arithmetic of the report is neither shared with the nation nor it seems to be clear to the reader.At a cursory reading of the document it seems if every Indian has access to Internet, India will become a software superpower. By that logic USA should not have those 400,000 odd high tech vacancies which is giving them major headaches just now.One therefore assumes that what they meant was a communication infrastructure with Internet being one of the applications on it. Building such an infrastructure would comprise of a network backbone, content on the backbone, access to the backbone and proliferation of access devices like PCs etc.The biggest problem is the lack of relevant Indian content. Till a couple of months back the information available on even the NASSCOM site did not have anything meaningful about the software industry, its skillsets, performance etc. All it had was a list of reports and how to order them.One hasn't bothered to look it up ever since. So, what is going to generate the traffic on this world class backbone? Out of the 200,000 PC owning households less than 10 per cent have found the content compelling enough to get an internet connection.The Government can begin by taking steps such allowing individuals to file their income tax through the internet. Rail tickets, house tax, phone bills, electricity bills should be paid for on the internet. Internet shopping should be encouraged. For this the RBI will have to change its rules. Banking services on internet should be encouraged. There are a million uses of the internt apart from information gathering. Unless this happens in India, offering access will be of little use. But the report does not tackle this in detail. Also there is no resource allocation for this.Any internet user will vouch for the difficulty faced in dialing into VSNL's lines. Can the task force fix that? How about doubling the number of dial up lines with VSNL under onehunting number instead of the twenty odd numbers that you need to dial up access end. No measures have been proposed by the task force to fix that. What would we do with a world class backbone with a DOT style access?What purpose will it serve to defocus the already defocussed PSUs by trying to replace DOT with them. Imagine Power Grid Corporation offering communication backbone when they can not even get the power backbone straightened or the neighbourhood cable wallah who can not even provide uninterrupted cable TV with picture clarity.With an Internet access node proposed in every district headquarters is a doomed business proposition from the very start unless the government actually intends to spend 9000 odd crores to convert every STD booth into an information kiosk. I hope the task force attempted to make a local call from one of the STD booths before coming to a conclusion that the owners would actually allow unlimited netsurfing and there would actually be people queueing up to make thebusiness viable.It took 30,000 engineers last year to do offshore software development worth $500 million, by 2008 if this figure has to be $50 billion (mostly offshore) then we would require three million software trained engineers, while at today's capacities our education system would churn out only six and a half lakhs in the next ten years. How does the task force intend to bridge this gap? Rather than squandering national resource on things actually no one needs, is it not better to create at least one world class software university immediately.The sad part is that software is always looked at divorced from hardware. Unless and until people have meaningful access to computers how will so many people get trained. Hardware exports have posted a negative growth of 17.48 per cent growth last year. The domestic hardware market has plateaued for the past two years in numbers terms and gone negative in value terms. The hardware industry needs a kick start now and not in 2002 for the sake of our softwarefuture. Duties and taxes have to become zero now. The competition Indian industry faces is not from cheap MNC computers but from inexpensive grey market operators and all the price wars will testify to that. Who are we trying to protect and make competitive?While the task force has accepted the long standing demand of income tax breaks for individuals and 100 per cent depreciation in one year not so much as a fiscal incentive but to create a market for meaningful and affordable second hand computers market. This will help IT proliferation more than anything else. A two year depreciation defeats that purpose.The most dangerous aspect of the action plan is the task force and its constituents being given the policing and purchasing role in the name of consolidating bulk requirements, economies of scale and facilitating implementation. The biggest favour the task force can do for IT is to stay out of IT implementation. The bulk purchasing tendering process has been the bane of IT industry for far too longwhere every one ends up selling at cost or below cost a choice of technologies based on whims and fancies of certain individuals rather than merit. For a recession hit industry this would mean more losses, lesser jobs and lesser FDI.The need of the hour is a little more debate, acceptance of plurality of view and immediate effective actions like relief to the hardware industry, investments in IT education and yes a telephone system that works.The author is an IT consultant.
