The Long Road

The industry roundtable with Narendra Modi at the CyberMedia ICT Business Awards was a good occasion to take stock of the state of the ICT industry in the country, assess its progress, and identify key initiatives for its advancement. Not only the key companies (Indian and global) representing the industry were present, but also numerous industry associations like Nasscom, MAIT, COAI, IAMAI, IESA participated with high interest.

On the whole the scene is not good. Our success in the global services industry (IT services and BPO) has not translated into a source of strength in developing other areas. The telecom industry which actually created the software exports magic is in doldrums. This is despite the global glory showered on both, the exports industry and the mobile industry.

We are yet to solve the base level problem of infrastructure-availability of high capacity data network across the country, also called as broadband. The experience is not new; it is the same in the case of roads, power, and many other infrastructure areas. If on one hand the lack of broadband shuts us out from doing many things that would have been possible otherwise, then on the other hand it forces us to pull on with low level and regressive usage models.

The industry spoke about the effects of low broadband penetration in the country. Low broadband is one of the key reasons for low PC penetration in the country and low usage model for PCs compared to even many other emerging countries. It is also a factor in lack of innovation in Internet-based businesses, mainly the slow offtake of e-commerce and other content-based businesses like games and videos.

Much of the efforts by the government to boost broadband have failed to move the needle on this. The national optic fiber network (NOFN) project is stuck in its implementation and companies deem the model to be flawed. Allocation of spectrum and pricing models for spectrum is
embroiled in controversy and stuck in the corridors of power. The trajectory of growth of the telecom industry is severely dampened by policy paralysis.

The other big area of opportunity to make a difference is the re-engineering of governance processes. A unified national IT agenda, instead of state-wise IT policies, will speed up the development of e-governance. To take advantage of the so-called demographic dividend, we need to launch into massive skill development.

In fact, Modi summed it up quite correctly. We need skill, scale, and speed to realize the full potential of IT as a tool for economic development and economic inclusion.