“Delhi is ready to have IT-enabled services”

Though the state was among the last to come out

with a formal IT policy, chief minister Sheila Dixit hopes to convert New Delhi

into a model cyber city by year 2003–a period too long by her own standards.

In an exclusive interview with DATAQUEST, Dixit talks about her government’s

initiatives to create an atmosphere more conducive for the IT industry’s

growth in the state. Excerpts: 

The Delhi IT policy aims at converting the national capital into a cyber city by the year 2003. What exactly do you mean by this?





I’m looking at Delhi being not a manufacturing kind of city, which

produces either hardware or software alone. My dream city of Delhi would be the

one where the citizens are e-citizens and there is complete e-governance. Delhi

being the capital of the country, I want it to be a true model city for the rest

of the country. It would be a city where all kinds of government information

will be available over the Internet, hence there is a great need to spread the

Internet movement and train the common man in its usage. It’s like the telecom

movement of the last century that ushered in an era of communication. This is

the kind of revolution that I am aiming to bring about in Delhi.

So what are the sops you plan to offer to promote IT industries in the state?

We have thought of sales tax concessions. In fact, we are in favor and would

continue to lobby for a zero duty sales tax on all IT products including sale

and leasing of computers and its accessories, CD-ROMs and other products.

However, we have been forced to adopt a wait-and-watch policy keeping in view

the ruling of uniform sales tax. We may have to tax hardware and software

products, but I assure you, it would not be above the agreed uniform floor rate.

We have also granted

permission to set up computer centers and cyber-cafes in residential areas. We

are also looking at ways to establish an incubation center to help entrepreneurs

to set up their businesses here in Delhi, as also an IT-for-industries project

that would advice existing industries on how to adopt and use IT. Existing

industries would also be encouraged to diversify into IT-enabled activities.

And when can the industry expect the sales tax reforms in Delhi?

We will read it out in our next budget. Where ever we need to give a

thrusting or a helping hand, my government would be there.

A recent CII report on

Indian states suggests that Delhi is the hottest investment destination.

However, experts argue that real estate and power are the two major concern

areas. What is the government doing to address these issues?



Definitely, we cannot increase the space. That is one limitation. However,
IT being a non-polluting service industry, we had requested for change in the

master plan to permit IT industries to operate from residential areas and it has

been approved. Now, we will be able to offer more room to entrepreneurs for

setting their shops in the state. While the power situation in the state has

already improved a lot, we hope to bring in a bill soon that would enable the

state government to privatize distribution of power (the interview was taken

before the government announced its decision on the issue). We are also looking

ahead to buy and produce more power. We have set up a new plant, Pragati, which

would start producing 320 Mw power within 18 months to two years. With all this,

I hope Delhi will be able to offer much more efficient and quality power to the

industry.

More industries would

mean more people or floating population. Is Delhi equipped to handle such

growth?

No, I don’t think this would be much of a problem. The beauty of IT
industry is that it does not require the kind of space and manpower that the

traditional industries, particularly the manufacturing industries, need. It’s

a neat and small industry where even consumption of power is much less and I

don’t think any region in India, other than Delhi, is better suited for this

industry.

So why did people (the IT

industry) not come to Delhi first? They went to Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad

and Pune…



Well, I think it’s because the earlier governments just did not think of
it. Investments can come in only if the government offers a clear-cut policy.

It’s my government, which initiated the process. We decided to focus on IT,

tried to make investment attractive and spelt out our IT policy. Other states

did these eight-ten years ago, whereas we have just started. I hope we will be

able to match our performance with the early birds and move ahead.

What are you doing on the

telecom front, particularly wiring the state for the Internet experience?





The telecom front, as you know, is the baby of the central government. But I
am confident that Delhi cannot be either overlooked or neglected. We still have

the best telecom infrastructure in place and we would be the first ones to

benefit from whatever development that happens on the telecom front in the

country. On the wiring of the states, lots of companies have shown interest. We

have a proposal from Reliance, which the government is evaluating.Â

What we are doing is–whether it is private sector participation or

whether it is an issue of just allowing them to do it on their own like

Spectranet–giving them opportunity so that the consumers and the user industry

is able to get the best. Competition has been extremely beneficial for the

growth of IT industry and the spread of IT amongst the people. The private

sector has played an important role in this and hence my government will like to

encourage it so that the people are able to benefit further and get the best

deal.

What is your government doing to embrace IT?

In our government offices, an added qualification for all new entrants will

be computer familiarity. Secondly, we are training batches of officers to make
them aware of the usage.

I have been categorical to

the bureaucracy that the government should not seem to be resisting new ideas.

That’s why I am keen that nine of our departments switch on to the e-way of

operation. It should so happen that there are e-citizens who demand such

services and then there should be the government that responds to these demands.

This will itself create enough opportunities for the growth of the IT industry,

especially that of IT-enabled services in the state, leading to an overall

growth. 

What is the status of the

Delhi IT venture fund that was to be launched earlier this year?

These are questions that you really ought to ask the bureaucracy. We had
taken this decision and the details were carefully worked out.Â

Now the implementation is with the bureaucrats.Â

The policy seems to be

focusing more on IT-enabled services rather than the traditional software

industry. Why?



This is because Delhi is a city that is ready to have IT-enabled services.
More than that, Delhi is a user’s city and hence we deliberately decided to

focus on this aspect of the IT industry. We are also planning to launch a

special scheme to help local industries to diversify into IT-enabled services.

What are you doing on the

manpower front?



We are deliberating with some of the universities and training organizations
to set up a high-tech training center–the Indian Institute of Information

Technology (IIIT). We are also planning to establish an IT open university to

encourage technical courses through university, schools and Industrial training

institutes (ITIs). My government also wants to upgrade the ITIs to enable them

to train people in skills like data entry, transcription, call center

operations, content creation and data processing. In long term planning, we

would like to take computer education to the schools. We have already

computerized about 120 schools this year and hope to computerize the whole bunch

of 1,100 Delhi government schools by 2003. Most of the private schools have been

encouraged, and whosoever said that they would like to have some collaboration

or partnership with the government in providing computers to the students and

training of the trainers, have been welcomed. I have also encouraged colleges to

have cyber cafes within their campuses so that more students can use it and

become aware of the potential.

There is a feeling that

the Delhi government does not actually have the powers to implement a lot of

things that it has mentioned in its IT policy. For example, your government had

to seek permission from the central government to allow IT ventures to operate

from residential areas…



Had we not had these speed breakers in our path and impediments in the form
of interference from the central government and other agencies, our growth would

have been much faster.  In fact,

these are the bottlenecks that are slowing down our pace and that is why we gave

ourselves three years for this reform.  We

have been talking to the central government, we have been talking to agencies

like MCD, and all of them are a little slow in understanding Delhi’s needs.

Our problem is that we are much faster than their speed of response. I wish they

would have been moving with the same speed as us or we had the powers of doing

it all alone.  In the case of

allowing IT companies to operate from the residential areas, we had to request

the government of India to make the necessary amendments in the Delhi master

plan. If only we had powers to do it ourselves, we would have announced it much

earlier. These are our handicaps.

Shubhendu

Parth



in New Delhi