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It would not be incorrect to term
1998-99 as the ‘Year of State IT Policies’. It might sound a bit incredible, but
the fact remains that computers and communications are no longer the monopoly of either
the Central Government or the governments of the tech savvy states like Tamil Nadu,
Karnataka, or Andhra Pradesh. Last year saw states like UP, MP, Orissa, Punjab, Goa, and
Haryana also announcing their independent IT policies. In fact Sikkim, perhaps the last
state in India that one would associate with infotech, also announced an IT policy of its
own.
State IT Policies are being
formed not only to enhance usage of computers and communications in the state, but also to
make them attractive destinations for setting up shops. These
align="right" hspace="4" vspace="4"> policies offer
attractive sales tax and excise duty structures for the IT industry; announce that many
government departments will be computerized and networked; identify towns which will be
made cyber cities; and set up budgets for doing all this. Little wonder that there
is the Goan chief minister who wants his state to be a highly preferred IT destination by
1999; the Karnataka government which embarks on a Rs 480 crore 100-story ‘Space
City’ project; the UP Government which says that Agra, Lucknow, Allahabad, NOIDA,
Kanpur, Dehradun, and Varanasi will be the IT cities of the state.
Chandrababu Naidu wanting to call
Hyderabad as Cyberabad definitely adds an element of hype in all these announcements.
However, it will be erroneous to assume that the announcement of these policies does not
mean much. It does. Though it may take some time for these policies to materialize into
actual sales orders, it has definitely had a meaningful impact on the confidence of the
industry—datacom as well as telecom. The datacom vendors, who were anyway doing
extremely good business, are even happier now. The telecom vendors, for whom the last two
years have been very slow, these policies might be the light at the end of the tunnel.
These announcements have also played a significant role in sustaining the confidence and
hope—the key drivers during adverse times—of the major players. And the
confidence and hope, in turn, have kept the industry going.
The State IT Policies also mean
more spending on networking and communications products, services, and backbone. According
to estimates, this spending could well run into more than a thousand crore of rupees. And
if a healthy competition starts among the states, one could see an exponential hike in the
communications budgets of states.
The State IT Policies also point
to the changing mind-set of politicians and bureaucrats in India. A government, which is
becoming communications friendly, is great news for the industry. Everybody knows of the
influence Chandrababu Naidu had on his peers like M Karunanidhi and JH Patel – both
became Internet users overnight. Many vendors who would have wound up operations because
of political and economic uncertainties and instabilities are today quite certain that
communications will get its due share.
State IT Policies also mean that
communications is going beyond the realms of the Central Government or the metros. It
implies that communications markets will expand to a lot of smaller cities and towns, and
the dependence on central government will reduce.
And last but not the least, is
the credibility factor. The Central Government has lost on the credibility front. It has,
for long, been talking of coming out with a National IT Policy—for which committees
and task forces have been set up, expanded, and then dissolved. But, in the end, nothing
has been formalized and finalized. The state governments, on the other hand, have already
announced their individual policies. Many in the industry have begun to feel that may be
the state governments can do it and the Central Government cannot. They believe that if
state governments can announce policies sooner than the Centre, they can, perhaps, also
implement them better.