Govt. to utilise CII summit to woo investors

By W. Chadrakanth

HYDERABAD, JAN. 8. With the CII's Seventh Summit opening tomorrow, the State Government is all set to market the State as an IT-savvy place to promote itself as an industry-friendly place.

The potential of electronic commerce has been rightly realised and efforts are on to ``Catch One, Catch All'' as official sources put it.

The basic thrust is to project the Government's image as a people-friendly and eco-friendly one and its facilitator's job that it envisages in the development as key to industrial success.

The State Government's stand vis-a-vis IT is that the latter would help in increasing the efficiency of the procurement system and strengthening inventory control. Access to the Internet and connectivity with increased bandwidth of all rural areas is part of empowering the rural masses, it is being argued. It lowers retail transaction costs and eliminates or transforms intermediaries, the Government believes. Even the global economic perspective of the World Bank holds similar views.

That the gap in Internet access between the industrial and developing countries will persist through the next decade has made the Government recognise and plan accordingly. Electronic commerce in industrial countries has grown rapidly from next to nothing in the mid-1990s to around 200 billion dollars in 2000, a report prepared by the World Bank says.

The importance of e-commerce rests not in its current size but in the likely speed of its establishment as a significant vehicle for commerce and the potential for future growth. E-commerce is likely to reach the levels of four trillion dollars to 6 trillion dollars in the U.S. alone within the next four years.

And when it accounts for 25 per cent of the world trade by 2005 can any country afford to lag behind?

In all three areas of ``business to business, business to consumer and business to business and consumer,'' the Government wants to establish a lead in the country by an all out aggression in the IT sector. The aim is not just to invite the ``Soft People'' to settle in and around Cyberabad but to make e- governance a 100 per cent reality where the farming, marketing, health, education and service sectors are integrated.

While e-commerce may have its impact on many areas it can certainly help farmers, particularly small farmers in remote areas who could keep a tab on prices in the nearest market. This means improving farmers' borrowing power.

But the other area that the Government is seriously interested in developing is skilled labour.

A proposal to train youth and women in the IT field is under contemplation, ``as a critical mass of skilled labour is essential to supply the necessary applications, provide support and disseminate relevant technical knowledge for electronic commerce.''

Government support is already assured by its switching to online services in some areas for its own transactions.

It may not be possible to achieve the IT dream unless the Governments play a complementary role here and at the Centre. As the survey points out, support to certification of firms by providing information on certification procedures, promoting access by domestic firms that provide certification, and perhaps subsidising the costs of certification to demonstrate the kinds of resources available in the domestic market are factors that cannot be ignored.

A supportive legal framework for electronic transactions, including recognition of digital signatures, legal admissibility of electronic contracts and establishment of data storage requirements in paper form, intellectual property rights for digital content, liability of Internet service providers, privacy of personal data and mechanisms for resolving disputes must be in place.

Knowledgeable sources welcome the initiative of the AP Government and hope the Government would work in the above direction too so that it ``nets'' the big fish for the benefit of the marginalised people too.

It may not bring connectivity to every household in the rural areas but, certainly, kiosks established in every village could bring people to the threshold of accessibility. Again increased access to the Internet being only a cursory condition for empowerment of people, many complementary services too are required to be developed.

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Section  : Southern States
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