 "Mohandas Pai")
Uttar Pradesh can learn from the Karnataka IT model to spur socioeconomic development and create high quality jobs in the state, former Infosys CFO and angel investor Mohandas Pai said.
Pai, who is also the Manipal Global Education chairman and All India Management Association (AIMA) president, said UP urgently needed a young IT minister, who understands technology and delivers in terms of enabling IT ecosystem and job creation for the youth.
Earlier this month, UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath and his Karnataka counterpart Siddaramaiah had sparred over Twitter on the issues of development and governance. The two leaders took potshots at each other after Adityanath visited Bengaluru for a political rally.
In his tweets, Siddaramaiah had mentioned that Adityanath could learn from Karnataka to tackle reported starvation deaths in UP. In his counter, Adityanath had cited increase in farmers’ suicides and alleged ill treatment of honest government officials under the Congress dispensation in Karnataka.
Talking to Business Standard here, Pai stressed that barring Noida, UP had a long way to go so far as IT sector was concerned. “UP is so big, it’s a country by itself and that’s a big challenge for the policymakers.”
As the CM of a state with the highest popolation in India, Adityanath has a special responsibility to ensure that the youth of UP were provided with the ecosystem and capital to innovate, while there is a policy structure that stimulates innovation and job creation, he underscored.
He noted that the wealth of any state depended upon its intellectual capital, high education and research. “UP needs to focus on the top of pyramid, focus on merit and innovation. You cannot focus on the bottom of pyramid always, because the top is required to create value and high quality jobs.”
He further said if one wished to see what top of the pyramid could do to a state’s economy, then Karnataka is the answer.
“There are 800 tech labs of the world’s leading IT companies in Bengaluru, which also hosts the largest number of silicon chip designers in the world,” he claimed.
Pai, who was in town for a conference on ‘Leadership in the Age of Disruption’ organised by AIMA affiliate Lucknow Management Association (LMA), said the UP government should create a conducive IT and entrepreneurship ecosystem to allow the youth to flourish lest they migrate to other places in search of greener pastures.
Meanwhile, he said technology start-ups was fast catching up in India and UP should not miss the bus.
India is home to 32,000 start-ups with collective economic value of 95 billion US dollars and employing 4,00,000 people. “Every year, 5000-6000 new start-ups are coming up and we believe that by 2025, India would have over 1,00,000 start-ups creating 500 billion dollars in value and employing 3.2 million workforce,” he claimed.
