The Revival of Gujarat

Just when Gujarat was recouping after the January 26, 2001 earthquake,
communal riots struck the state. The cash-rich state of India has not been able
to attract sufficient investments in terms of Information Technology (IT). The
absence of an IT industry per se was so evident in the recent summit, Resurgent
Gujarat, organized by the state government in Ahmedabad in February.

Gujarat has entered into a partnership with the United Kingdom. The aim of this joint exercise is simple–jack up the quantum of foreign funding

As you enter the venue on the second day of the buoyant meet you witness the
entrance stage at the gate knocked down by high velocity winds, thereby choking
the vehicular traffic at the main entrance gate. It fell as soon as the session
on IT started. The government's efforts to bring in heavy weights like Azim
Premji had failed and in the end, the summit was reduced to a local seminar.

As the head of Computer & Information department of the Indian Institute
of Management, Ahmedabad, B H Jajoo pointed out, the summit faulted in its basic
configuration. "At other seminars, I saw the industry organizing the event
and the government facilitating it. Here the government is organizing it and the
industry is merely a sponsor of lunch or soft drinks," he remarked.

The Business Partnership Meet, with the UK as the partnering country, was
aimed to attract investments to the state in various sectors. Gujarat watched in
agony as a majority of the MNCs that entered the country after economic
liberalization were hijacked by other states. States like Andhra Pradesh and
Karnataka have become the hub of IT business activities.

Even with business being in their genes and state being one of the most
business friendly, Gujarat failed to attract these investors thereby incurring a
heavy setback. All efforts by the government as well as the private
participation to woo these investors by way of Info cities, Info towers and
science cities have made no progress. Now as a last resort, this meet was
organized combined with a large public relation (PR) exercise within potential
investor circles. Pramod Mahajan, the union IT minister, who inaugurated the
meet, however did not see this PR translating into investments. "IT needs
PR, as in today’s world, the stress is on information," he maintained.

"The state lacks a champion, whom anyone can approach to get thier
problem solved within hours if not minutes. The other states succeeded in trying
to create an environment that is not merely friendly but hyperactive," said
Jajoo. He said that the IT industry, basically a service oriented one, depends
upon the intellectual capital rather than financial capital. "We need high
quality research institutions. We have physical infrastructure but lack in
intellectual ones," he added. He further said that the large number of
unemployed youths have to become the major strength since they form the
intellectual capital. "And this capital does not come from the RBI, stock
exchange or trading houses. They come from educational institutions. We need to
strengthen them," he added.

A huge PR exercise preceded the Business Partnership Meet. IT minister Mahajan endorsed the binge, saying: “IT needs PR. In today’s world, information comes first”

However, the government’s move to open colleges in computer application
fields has failed to elicit enough response as the use of English as the medium
came across as a major hindrance. Those who pass out from the existing ones also
make their move towards other destinations. "I think there is something
wrong somewhere. It is not very difficult to pluck out what went wrong. We
should analyze ourselves and see where we lack," said Chirag Mehta, CEO and
Managing Director of Icenet Communications, one of the leading Internet service
providers in Gujarat. One of the speakers, P M Anvarthan, CEO of Rajkot based
ACE Software Exports felt that the industry is relying too much on the
government. "We should leave governance to the government and do business.
It is not only impractical but pointless to look uo to the government each
time," he pointed out. But with private participation also becoming
obsolete, the government is in a corner. The GNFC Info tower built on
plug-n-play basis primarily for those companies, which can directly barge in and
start their business, has made no significant impact. There are also rumors that
some portion of it may be rented out to run a commerce college.

The setting up of a Science city is another achievement for the government.
In a sprawling 100 hectares of land and with a total estimated cost of 3.5
billion, the government’s move is to inculcate scientific literacy in an
engaging manner and to bridge the gap between business, industry and community.
But various non governmental organizations have pooh poohed the government’s
move to go hi-tech when the primary education level is in shambles.

"With no importance given to the basic sector, the government has
directly jumped into the bandwagon to become the 51st state of the US. We should
understand that charity begins at home and there could be nothing better than
watching rural children growing up with proper education even in the field of
IT," said Raghuraj Mistry, one of the participants. But on the positive
front, some of the companies have managed to sign pacts of partnerships during
the meet, though these are of little signficance.

Binu Alex/CNS in Ahmedabad

Gujarat Jobs Go Online

The
Directorate of Employment and Training (DET) better known among job seekers in
Gujarat as the Employment Exchange, has gone online. It plans to put its entire
database on the net, which can be browsed and updated by the applicants
themselves. But with government jobs becoming a remote possibility and corporate
employers not preferring government recruitment, the jobseekers say they have
merely been promoted from the dusty files to the more attractive web. But the
Director of DET, Raj Kumar has worked hard to get the work on the path to
progress. He undertook the task of making his department net savvy although he
knows the real task of the DET, that of finding jobs, is hard to accomplish.

This precisely means that the Employment Exchanges will no longer be the hub
of empty stomachs and no more early morning queues to fill the forms. Now they
can visit www.talimrojgar.org at their leisure and register themselves. The site
developed with the help of National Informatics Centre (NIC) will also be the
hunting ground for prospective employers.

But major chunks of employment generated through these exchanges are for
Group ‘D’ jobs. Central and state government establishments who fill up
these jobs are, unfortunately, not yet hooked to the net and therefore manual
transactions are likely to continue for a long time. In due course of time, the
website will have a database of more than 10 lakh of job seekers. Twenty percent
of these are likely to have been employed while waiting for summons from the
Exchange. At the moment, Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad applicants, numbering about
three lakh have been put uo on the site. Through the site, the jobseekers will
be able to know their employment status and search for vacancies depending upon
their qualifications.

Though Raj Kumar is optimistic of the utilities that the site may generate, it
remains to be seen how the job seekers benefit in actual terms.