'We have a large IT presence, and we want to improve on that'

At a time when people with hot degrees grabbed top private sector jobs,

shunning careers in the government, Rajat Kumar chose to be different. He gave

up a highly-successful career after five years with Tisco, joining the Indian

Administrative Service. He has handled diverse responsibilities, having worked

as sub-collector and project director for rural development in Andhra Pradesh.

In July 2000, Kumar took over as joint secretary (IT and communications) in the

state government, responsible for investment promotion and business development

in the state. He was recently in New Delhi to iron out the details for a mega-IT

event in the state. He met up with DATAQUEST and talked about the forthcoming

event, also elaborating on the other IT initiatives in the state. Excerpts:

A lot has been said about the development of IT in Andhra Pradesh.

What are the government initiatives and their measurable impacts?

Things started moving in 1996 with the commissioning of ‘Vision 20:20’

document prepared by McKinsey for the state government. Also, we were the first

state to come up with such a document. The document identified some growth

engine for the state economy and IT was identified as a major strength area for

the state. That was a time when other states Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil

Nadu were far ahead of us. Post-commissioning of the document, we decided to go

in a big way. Our first task was to create the infrastructure. Since then a lot

of work has been done. And the impact has been tremendous. Starting at about 2%

contribution to the national IT economy in terms of revenue and exports, we now

have a 10% share. Eight years ago, our IT revenues were a mere Rs 40 lakh; today

they have crossed Rs 200 crore–a CAGR of over 107%. We have over 1,200 IT

companies, with over 60,000 people employed in Hyderabad alone.

What has the impact of IT been on the common man in Andhra?

IT has impacted the lives of the ordinary people at two levels. First, there

has been a tremendous improvement in the government’s internal efficiencies.

Take the example of the power sector. With the help of intensive monitoring by

the chief minister himself, we have been able to bring up the plant load factor

from 56% to over 92%. Had we gone the old way of setting up green field projects

and then increasing more power, it would have cost the state about Rs 10,000

crore. Now that fund is available for other sectors. This is impact of an

indirect nature. A more direct impact can be seen in the IT initiatives taken by

various departments. It has changed the entire paradigm of administration. The

Web-based service will make all government services accessible to citizens in a

more efficient, convenient and transparent manner. And with about 7,500 Internet

kiosks coming up across the state, the impact will be significant.

It is learnt that the state is planning to host an

IT event of some significance. What are the factors driving the event?

We feel that we have a very large IT presence, and naturally

we would like to project the same. We also feel that there are a lot of people

in the business community who’re interested to see what’s happening in

Andhra. And it is our intent to provide an organized forum for showcasing Andhra

Pradesh’s IT initiative. The event will cover various aspects ranging from our

e-governance program to business advantages of the state. Also, organizing such

an event will provide further business opportunities to existing business houses

and smaller entrepreneurs who may not have easy global access. In many other IT

events we have also found a lack of structure for transacting business and

intend to overcome the same in our event.

What are you planning to project in the event?

It’s not IT alone that we intend to focus on but also the

other segments of ICE, communication and entertainment. We have a lot of

strength in the entertainment segment and have  been debating for some time

to have an entertainment-specific niche event. We will also emphasize our

e-governance initiative, which is touching the lives of over 80 million people,

something many a developed country cannot boast of.

What segments are you targeting for the event?

We have identified three segments. One, CIOs in the user

industry. Since Hyderabad is centrally-located, industries in our neighboring

states can look at us for a good outsourcing destination. We intend to showcase

the solutions for the local industries.

Two, IT majors. Today we have the best facilities available

in the country. Our advantage, compared to other cities, is that our entire

evolution of IT infrastructure happened from the drawing board. We had

benched-marked the state-of-the-art infrastructure of Silicon Valley and have

tried to build our infrastructure on the same. So that makes good investment

opportunities in Andhra for IT majors. We have a 5,200-acre plan coming up in

Cyberabad with fiber all around. It’s being built as knowledge hub with

in-built synergies with the finance districts and the learning centers like

universities. The IIIT is already located there while the Indian School of

Business is also coming up.

Next on the list are the foreign companies. They are looking

at relocating their developing centers in India for obvious cost benefits and

manpower availability. We have an astounding 40,000 professionals coming out

every year with different levels of expertise. Companies coming to India to

outsource are looking at about 30-40% cost savings. But we feel that given our

advantages of abundance of land and infrastructure, they can save anything from

50-70%.

All states are gung-ho about software but without

any plans for hardware. Is it the same here?

I agree that it’s been the software part that has been

given prominence so far and at the cost of the hardware. We would like to

correct that. We are making a 5,000-acre hardware park with a custom corridor to

the international airport that’s coming up in Hyderabad. Since the hardware

industry is a very logistics driven industry, we have been talking to some of

the biggest names in the hardware assembly business and studying their

facilities abroad. For instance, at the Penang Facility in Malaysia, it takes

about four-and-a-half minutes to have the finished computer in the air carrier.

That’s the facility we want to replicate to be able to rope in hardware

manufacturers. We are getting Singapore-based Jurong Park Corp to set up the

pilot project for us.

The IT revolution in AP has so far been personality

dependent…

Well, today no one talks about derailing the reforms. We are

creating infrastructure and trying to institutionalize IT and create a social

environment. Once we have initiated the infrastructure process, business

interest rather than politics will promote it.

ASIM RAINA, RAJEEV NARAYAN and

YOGRAJ VARMA in New Delhi