Fronts Cmp To Continue: Maran

Union industry minister Murasoli Maran yesterday said there will be no change in policy on the focus of economic reforms with the change in leadership at the Centre.

"We will march ahead with the road-map provided by the Common Minimum Programme, he said.

Maran who was at Madpur, near Hyderabad, to launch the first phase of the Rs 1,400 crore `Infocity project - billed as the largest information technology park in Asia - quoted from Alvin Tofflers book `Power Shift that the world will no longer be divided between the rich and poor countries, but between fast and slow countries.

He said it was time India looked at the eight superstars of the East for progress - Japan, South Korea, Hongkong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

Thirty years ago, the Union minister said, two-fifths of the

population of the eight East Asian countries lived below the poverty line: now the figure is negligible. Some of them were the world's richest countries.

"Unless we move faster and have consensus on key economic policy matters, we can never dream of catching up with our Asian brothers."

Maran wanted India to emulate what he termed as "the China Mentality", which made that country the world's number three economic power. "Then only we can eradicate poverty of our millions."

Maran underlined the importance of information technology in the fast changing world and cautioned that India could ill-afford to miss the information technology revolution now sweeping the world.

But to achieve this, he said, hard decisions will have to be taken; computers will have to be made available at affordable prices and telecom charges have to be cut.

"Something radical should be done to open up a totally new exploding market for computers, service providers and IT, in general, throughout the country", he said.

On a lighter note, he recalled Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidus suggestion that the United Front's steering committee meetings could be held through video conferences. But it is much cheaper to travel from Hyderabad to Delhi than think of video conferencing right now."

Presiding over the function, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N

Chandrababu Naidu described the day as realisation of his one-and -a-half years dream and hoped Larsen & Toubro, the co-sponsors of the project, will complete the first phase of the project before the target period of end of 1998. He said the Andhra government has extended a number of concessions for the project, including exemption from stamp duty on land registration, uninterrupted power supply, water and sewerage facilities.

The government was committed to making Hyderabad the model city in the country, Naidu said, and resolved to make the states government offices paperless five years from now.

Larsen & Toubro chief executive S D Kulkerni welcomed the guests while president A Ramakrishnan explained the salient features of the `Infocity project.