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