THE NEW STATE OF IT: NEW PARTNERSHIPS!

November 14th 2002 was declared as Biotech Day by the Government of
Maharashtra and the event was celebrated by a formidable seminar organized in
the city of Mumbai by the State Government in collaboration with CII. The CII
has a mission of restoring the sheen of Maharashtra as the country’s preferred
investment destination and has chosen Biotech, Information Technology,
Entertainment and Financial Services in addition to Manufacturing as the focus
areas for the year. As if to reinforce this intention, the Government
participated with Industry in force with State Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh,
Industries Minister Patangrao Kadam and the Heads of all the major corporations
like MIDC, CIDCO SICOM showing up at the session to show their commitment to the
grand plan of putting Maharashtra on the world map of Biotech.

"The success of IT outsourcing can be replicated in R&D outsourcing and the development of bio-pharma, bio-agriculture and bio-nformatics"

It is interesting to note the similarities between the Biotech industry today
and the IT Industry of a decade ago when even 400 crore of exports was seen as a
great achievement and just a handful of companies dared to cross the Atlantic to
market their services wares. The success of IT outsourcing can be replicated in
R&D outsourcing and the development of bio-pharma, bio-agriculture, and
bio-informatics. The partnership between the government, developmental
institutions, industry and academia which has only today begun to happen in the
IT sector, is evident from the beginning in this exciting area.

What makes this country and the state of Maharashtra in particular a likely
candidate for success in Biotech? The newly appointed Chief of the State Biotech
Commission, CSIR Director and scientist extraordinaire, Dr Mashelkar makes a
valid point when he says that institutions like the Haffkine Institute and
Hindustan Antibiotics Ltd have been the pride of the state for decades and with
over forty percent of the country’s Pharma companies based in the State. There
is also tremendous commitment from the big Pharma companies to the State and the
alliances that Indian majors like Nicholas Piramal have completed with the CSIR
and various academic institutions could well be a role model for the Indian IT
industry itself in the years to come.

As though to establish the State’s commitment to the IT-BT movement, the
Chief Minister and leading lights of his cabinet and bureaucracy were back in
force four days later for the glittering launch of the Digital Maharashtra event
which incorporated Round Table discussions between the State and Industry
Chieftains to make the State infrastructure truly world class. With the best of
IT chiefs rubbing shoulders with the Rahejas and Hiranandanis, and the
commitment of the CEO to interact regularly with the council of CEOs, many
decisions could be taken on the spot to improve the status of IT infrastructure
and employee facilities in the city of Mumbai. A clarion call given by Jerry Rao
to make Pune the Boston of India was also accepted with alacrity by the
Government, showing the common willingness to pull out all the stops to put the
State on the fast track to success!

In the last few months, one has seen tremendous energy and enthusiasm in a
wide cross section of political, bureaucratic and academic circles, and there is
reason to believe that in the second wave of IT that is beginning to send the
revenues and stock prices of Software firms northwards in the last few weeks,
there will be a true partnership between Industry and Government as well as
Industry and Academia to build world class infrastructure and manpower to fuel
the Indian IT Superpower dream !

The author is the global CEO of Zensar
Technologies