Balance `brick economy & click economy': PM

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, JULY 4. The role information technology (IT) can play not only in boosting employment in the convergence technologies but also in developing the ``old economy'' was stressed by the Prime Minister, Mr. A.B. Vajpayee, and his ministerial colleagues today.

The Prime Minister, who inaugurated the TIDEL Park at Taramani in the city, called for ``urgent attention'' to the development of IT for the revival and modernisation of the country's traditional industries.

``The bulk of software development in India is targeted for exports. Disturbingly, our domestic economy is absorbing very little of it so far. This imbalance is hurtful to the long-term sustainability of our potential in IT. India's national goals can be achieved only by a balance between the `brick economy' and the `click economy,''' Mr. Vajpayee said, adding the ``new economy'' was needed to create new efficiencies and higher productivity in the traditional economy.

``Similarly, we need the revival of the traditional economy to create a growing and vibrant domestic market for the new economy,'' the Prime Minister said. A specific initiative which could drive the domestic market for IT was the rapid and widespread use of IT in Government departments, utilities, banks and other public sector undertakings.

Now that an IT legislation had been enacted, enabling secure e- commerce transactions, ``I would like to see all bulk procurement to soon take place on the Internet''. ``This will promote transparency, efficiency and accountability and also lead to considerable savings for the Government,'' Mr. Vajpayee said. He also promised early action on the Sethusamudram project.

The Union Minister for Information Technology, Mr. Pramod Mahajan, said ``talk less and do more in IT'' seemed to be Tamil Nadu's approach, symbolised by its several initiatives. To ensure that not just the ``State of (mathematics genius) Ramanujan but also the land of Bhaskaracharya'' (southern and northern regions) benefited from the development of IT, the Central and State Governments should come out with policies and plans to double IT capacity every two years.

``Building excess capacity is the key to becoming a globally competitive player,'' he said, and called for development of IT in Indian languages for its benefit to reach the masses and for the IT industry itself to realise its full potential.

The Chief Minister, Mr. M. Karunanidhi, said electronic Government projects under implementation in the State included land records, land maps, taluk offices, sub-registrar's offices, regional transport offices, sales tax offices and municipal offices. Pointing out that a TIDEL Park-II was in the offing, he said the present park, constructed without cost or time overrun, had world-class facilities, including a state-of-the art thermal storage system for 50 per cent of the installed capacity.

The Union Minister for Power, Mr. Rangarajan Kumaramangalam, said his Ministry proposed to provide bandwidth infrastructure using thousands of kilometres of transmission lines, and expressed the hope that the Telecommunications Ministry would have no objection to such plans which were vital to create adequate IT capacity.

The Union Minister for Environment and Forests, Mr. T.R. Baalu, said Chennai should be chosen the landing point for optical fibre cables since it was right on the coast, unlike Hyderabad or Bangalore.

The Union Minister for Industry and Commerce, Mr. Murasoli Maran, said Tamil Nadu was a late starter in IT and its progress had largely been achieved in the past four years, which explained its second position after Karnataka in IT exports. Earlier regimes for a whole decade had not taken any initiative, he alleged.

The Union Minister for Telecommunications, Mr. Ram Vilas Paswan, said the Centre might decide to end the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited's monopoly over long-distance communications earlier than scheduled at present.

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