CHANDIGARH, SEPTEMBER 27: Welcome to the new infotech boom in agrarian Punjab. Despite a mounting fiscal deficit of Rs 3,780 crore, up by 53 percent from 1998, and the outstanding government debt of 36 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product of the state, the Punjab government has launched an IT blitzkrieg.Topping the list is a proposal to set up an office in San Jose, California to ``attract'' foreign investment in the IT sector. Its estimated monthly expenditure has been tagged at $20,000.This figure includes the cost of rented office space, promotional expenditure, salary, house and car for an Indian Foreign Service officer, M.P. Singh, who has just completed his tenure there with the Indian consulate. It is suggested that Singh be taken on deputation from the IFS for a period of three years. He is considered the best man for the job because he organised two visits there for Andhra Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, and enjoys ``a good rapport with the infotech guys there.''Says Principal Secretary Ramesh Inder Singh: ``Although no firm decision has been taken as yet, the Department of Finance and Planning is doing a cost-benefit analysis, and if opening an office abroad will facilitate IT, we will go ahead.''The grand proposal germinated after a summer visit this year by a clutch of senior bureaucrats - Ramesh Inder Singh, N.S. Kalsi, director of the department of information systems and administrative reforms and G.S Peerzada, managing director of the Punjab State Electronics Development and Production Corporation. They were on a Punjab government-sponsored trip to attend an infotech conference, and lure infotech czars to Punjab. They returned with a couple of proposals.As part of the lavish blueprint for attracting IT investment, the Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA) has been asked to earmark over 300 acres near Mohali/Chandigarh for setting up a world-class golf course complex complete with a motel. Says Peerzada: ``This would be a great image-booster for Punjab like the cricket stadium (in Mohali). We could hold world class tournaments there.''He is in touch with the world's best golf course designers like Greg Norman and Jack Nicklaus. But how will it be financed? Says Peerzada: ``I have Alladin's chirag. We won't have to spend a dime. We will just be facilitators, we'll have developers who'll do it for us and a different group of investors.''Economists in the state are remarkably sceptical about these claims, as Punjab isn't exactly the paradise for foreign investment. Says a senior economist from the Centre for Rural Research and Industrial Development (CRRID): ``Unless an investor is making a distress decision, he would consider 100 indicators before putting in money here. Indicators which Punjab, unfortunately, does not have.''There is too much red-tape, there are no incentives like offering land at subsidised rates, no single-window clearance to avoid corruption and no model of industrial development to emulate. Also, there's a very strong public perception that corruption is rampant among officials. In the past 25 years, the few NRIs to invest in the electronic sector have fled after a few years.Unconcerned, the government will soon be acquiring 1,200 acres in Mohali t o develop the area into a Silicon Valley. Of this, around 300 acres will be delineated for an IT township.This is just one part of the great ride on infohighway that the state is palnning. The Department of Information Systems, formed to promote IT in the state, has been on an overdrive. Secretary-level officers in all government departments are being gifted lap-tops. This is despite the fact that their offices are fitted with computers.Statements released by the Punjab government boast about the hi-tech executive information system installed in the Chief Minister's office. They claim that information and monitoring of files in all government departments, complaints and details of the CM's meetings and progress of ongoing projects can be accessed by the Chief Minister by a click of the mouse.The ground reality is vastly different. According to sources, most government departments are yet to feed in the requisite data and secretaries are undergoing training for the purpose. While a sophisticated system has finally been evolved, it is still skeletal and far from interactive.Ironically, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal is not keen to become computer literate himself. At a recent meeting with vice-chancellors of state universities, when he was asked to look at the complaints on a computer, he asked to be shown the humble register instead.
