It Task Force To Expedite Reforms

The recommendations of the of the task force on information technology (IT) set up by the Prime Minister will speed up, broaden and deepen the process of economic reforms, industry minister Sikander Bakht told investors at the IT World `98 Comdex show here yesterday.

Addressing the same function, department of electronics (DoE) secretary Ravinder Gupta yesterday announced that the Cyber Law Framework Bill is ready and will be introduced in the current session of Parliament.

Bakht said the government would implement the recommendations to attain the export target of $50 billion by 2008. "The idea is to provide enabling policy towards the goal of "IT for all by 2008," he said while inaugurating the four-day event.

He added that the government has already begun giving capital goods, raw material and component benefits to IT products and services to help the industry achieve this target.

Bakht said the government proposes to launch programmes aimed at making computer literacy universal and also spread the use of computer and IT in education.

"The government is also taking steps to boost IT for agricultural and integral rural development," Bakht said.

Answering questions about the delay in implementing the recommendations of the task force that was submitted to the Prime Minister on November 3, the industry minister said, "There is no need for any apprehension. These recommendations are going to be implemented very soon".

He, however, refused to spell out the details or any specific date.

In his address, Gupta said that a national venture capital fund would be set up with participation from Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi), ICICI and the industry to fund the infrastructure needs of this fast-expanding industry. However, he refused to disclose the corpus of the fund.

Gupta also said the venture capital framework for the IT industry must be at par with that in the US and this Bill should become law in the current Parliament session itself.

Dwelling on the Indian IT professionals' productivity, Gupta said, "We produce 150,000 information technology professionals every year but a mere five per cent of them are good enough".

To improve the quality of IT manpower the country is producing, Gupta pointed out, Rs 150 crore will be invested for creating quality educational institutions, including the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (Its).

"We're going to rope in Its, Indian Institute of Science and the Indoor Gandhi National Open University to upgrade software graduate education via distance learning programmes," Gupta said. The secretary also said that he is looking forward to personal computer prices falling to Rs 20,000 "very soon".