Date:27/10/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/10/27/stories/2006102701240500.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Tax sops plan for India Inc to invest in rural uplift technologies

Staff Reporter

Plan has been accepted fairly well by Government: T. Ramasami

CHENNAI: The Department of Science and Technology has proposed that companies be given significant tax exemptions for investments in technology that bring about social change in rural India. T. Ramasami, secretary, Department of Science and Technology told The Hindu that the proposal had been sent to the Planning Commission and found acceptance with the Government.

In today's model of rural development, the State collects money from companies and then distributes it. "But the system absorption is 85 per cent, only 15 per cent actually goes to the people," Dr. Ramasami said in the Dr C.V.Seshadri Memorial Lecture organised by the A.M.M Murugappa Chettiar Research Centre (MCRC).

The "effect to effort ratio will be higher" if India Inc directly put money into rural development by financing relevant technologies, he said, adding that a change in taxation policy would help promote this. He said that he was trying to persuade business houses to implement such a policy on an experimental basis.

Praising the socially relevant scientific philosophy of the late Dr. C.V. Seshadri, founder director of MCRC, Dr. Ramasami said science and technology must be used to distribute justice and equal sharing of resources.

China model rejected

India should not adopt the China model of growth, according to Dr. Ramasami. "China is creating a rate of generation of wealth that is significantly higher than her rate of distribution of wealth ... that is a recipe for social catastrophe," he said.

Instead, Dr. Ramasami said India must implement the Seshadri Paradigm that says "equity is good science," and develop technologies that use an economy of scope, rather than scale.

Science must be inclusive and maximise the rural potential of natural and human resources, working within the limitations of limited capital and infrastructure.