In a comprehensive study carried out by the Confederation of Indian Industry's (CII) Information Technology (IT) task force, it has emerged that Gujarat's poor performance in the IT sector is not a mere co-incidence.

The state lacks most of the fundamentals that drives the IT market.

Foremost on the list is the absence of skilled workforce followed by connectivity, which could have been just anybody's guess. If these two fall in place, it will set other engines like promotion of entreprenuership, luring talents into the state, leveraging intrinsic strength, accelerate e-governance, encourage government-industry partnership and building brand equity into motion.

With the state having its facts right on these count, the government has already started working towards portraying an IT-savvy image for Gujarat. "If the state has missed out on investments in the IT sector, it is because Gujarat has not been projected as an IT destination and its achievements in this area has also been underplayed. There is a need to shake off certain misconception that MNCs carry about Gujarat to attract anchor investments in this sector." says CII president Sunil Parekh.

It may have woken up to these facts only recently and the state is trying hard to get a major chunk of the projected earning from software exports by 2008 which is definitely not going to be a political plum.

NASSCOM-Mckinsey report projects India's software exports to increase from $3.1 billion in 1998 to $80 billion by 2008. So, whatever growth India has achieved until now accounts for merely 10 per cent of what may be coming in the future.

Ninety per cent of the IT race is still on. And Gujarat wants to steal a march in this race and feature prominently on the country's IT roadmap. For this, it has to stress on two areas - creating a pool of skilled workforce and enhancing its existing communications infrastructure in alliance with VSNL, rather than giving old economy freebies like subsidies and tax exemptions.

In the action plan sketched by CII, it estimates a revenue of minimum $ 4 billion (eight per cent of the projected growth by NASSCOM-Mckinsey) from the IT sector by 2008. This, it wants to achieve by pushing exports earnings through growth in IT-enabled services and software services. The recommendations drawn up for IT growth include explosion of IT education in three years, support IT infrastructure and private capital use, both within the state and creating international gateways, attract anchor investment in IT and IT Enabled Services.

Compiled from Local News Media