DoE Readies Report On National IT Action Plan

The Department of Electronics (DoE) has

prepared the draft report on the IT action plan. The 100-page document is titled India IT

Vision 2010 Action Plan. The action plan has been made on the basis of Prime Minister AB

Vajpayee’s stated intention to make India a global Information Technology superpower

within the next 10 years. In a statement on March 22, Vajpayee said that his government

would "make India a global IT power and one of the world’s largest generators

and exporters of software in the next 10 years."

The task of fleshing out the PM’s

Vision was initially handed over to the Planning Commission, which then passed it to the

DoE. The DoE draft report has been forwarded to the Commission and will come up for

discussion at the newly re-constituted Development Council for Electronics Industry

(DCEI), under the chairmanship of Secretary DoE, in Delhi sometime this week. Another

round of meetings have been scheduled for later in the week with the industry and the

Government to try and work out chinks, if any, in the first draft.

As of now, the IT action plan is a 100-page

document which divides the task into three phases and 25 individual actions. Under the

phased approach, the first phase looks at consolidating existing gains in software

exports. The second calls for a build up through a bootstrap approach. While the third

calls for sustaining the work to take the country into true IT superstardom. The 25 items

listed in the Plan cover everything—from making education compulsory till the school

level to setting up of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) post-haste.

Individual aspects covered also include parameters such as setting up a mega-fab unit on

the hardware front to setting up a National Software Development Front to further

encourage software exports as well as help in the creation of a vibrant local market for

selling software. This is seen as an imperative if India is to move into developing

packaged software. Another area, where the Report lays stress is on developing cyber laws.

Thought the DoE had submitted a draft proposal of the laws to the Committee of

Secretaries, nothing much has happened. This was during the last days of the previous

United Front government. The Report calls for the resurrection of cyber laws and their

immediate implementation if the Vision has to come true. The Report also talks

exhaustively about the need to implement ecommerce at the earliest as well as on boosting

IT proliferation in the country. It has primarily focused on three important aspects of

IT; namely IT enhancement, software exports, and Digital Society.

The Plan also looks at areas like

infrastructure, manpower development, as well as R&D. These three are seen as the main

stumbling blocks which could stymie the Vision from becoming a reality. To counter this,

the Report calls for urgent action on the infrastructure front, specifically to develop a

super structure that will not hinder hardware and software exports. To tackle the issue of

manpower, the Report calls for encouraging students at a very early stage. This can be

done by getting in computers at the school level and by encouraging more education to be

centered around computers. The Report also lists ways to strengthen the R&D

infrastructure in the country. As it could become the engine to fuel IT growth in the next

century.

According to sources within the government,

DoE’s current plan is merely a draft which is to be submitted to a committee of

senior bureaucrats constituted for this express purpose. The committee is represented by

Ministries of I&B, Communication, Commerce, Finance, Science & Technology, besides

Planning Commission. While each of the members have been asked to prepare their

Ministry’s view on what the plan should be, it has been left to the Planning

Commission to finally hammer out a policy framework which will then be submitted to the

PMO.

While the DoE’s plan calls for a

three-phase approach to the entire area of IT proliferation and development, there is a

feeling that it may not serve the purpose of domestic assimilation of IT, a stated purpose

of the PMO directive. As a consequence, the DoE proposals are likely to be seen in context

of proposals from other ministries and a final decision is likely to be taken in this

context.