Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Satyam chief moots body for overseas investment

- PHOTO: P. V. SIVAKUMAR

Setting the agenda: Debesh Das (right) , Minister for IT, West Bengal, R. Damodar Reddy, Minister for IT, and B. Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam Computers at a meet in Hyderabad on Wednesday.

HYDERABAD: Voicing concern over the dollar depreciation against the rupee, chairman of Satyam Computer Services Ltd B. Ramalinga Raju on Wednesday urged the Union Government to constitute a special body which can invest overseas so as to balance the inflow and outflow of funds.

“Dollar is weakening very rapidly. Look at the challenge in the background of infrastructure issues staring at us. Human resources development is not happening at the expected pace. These are clear signs that we could fritter away the opportunities thrown up by the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector that has come India’s way. If we don’t act now, other counties will pick them up,” he said.

Addressing Infocomm-2007 here, Mr. Raju said that the IT sector in India would be a trillion-dollar business -- as large as India’s present economy -- in the next 15 years.

Lauding the initiatives by the State Government for making use of the opportunities, he wanted a national-level initiative for this. “Today the world economy is $ 42 trillion. Over the next 20 years, services alone will account for $ 30 trillion and more than 60 p.c. of them would be delivered on a virtual platform,” he said. He advocated commoditisation of excellence, so that India could show the way to the world, in an innovative manner, how speed and scale could make a huge difference.

“We have only scratched the surface. All that had happened is only prototype, well tested and validated. We are only waiting for the revolution to happen,” he said.

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