Bangalore: N.R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman and Chief Mentor, Infosys Technologies Ltd., on Friday advocated spending larger amounts of money to make people from the disadvantaged sections of society "market-worthy and competitive" rather than resorting to reservation to uplift the cause of the downtrodden.

`Raises many questions'

"The issue of reservation in educational institutions such as IIMs raises many questions. Does this mean that you are going to have reservation in the armed forces? The basic problem is that at the primary and secondary level we are not able to enrol sufficient number of people from the disadvantaged sections of society. We should spend more and more money to make these people market-worthy and competitive," he said.

Mr. Murthy said he was sad at the developments that took place following the death of the matinee idol Rajkumar. "What happened was really, really sad. This was not the way we should have paid respects to a person like him. His fans should not have created the havoc that was created. Rajkumar certainly deserved a better farewell that what was given to him," Mr. Murthy said.

Hyderabad campus

The recent decision of Infosys to set up a campus in Hyderabad should not be seen as a fight between Bangalore and Hyderabad for investments by information technology firms. "We want to go everywhere. It is just that corporates have to take quick decisions where infrastructure and people are available. It was just that Hyderabad was able to give us land quickly so that we could start," he pointed out. Infosys was also keen on expanding operations in West Bengal and Jaipur. Though the Karnataka Government had cleared a proposal from Infosys for acquiring 845 acres of land for expanding its operations, it still had a long way to go before the land was acquired, Chief Financial Officer, T.V. Mohandas Pai said.

Long process

"We have received a letter from the Government asking us to talk to the KIADB for acquisition of land. We now have to look for the land and make sure that the price is reasonable. Then we have to ask the KIADB to acquire that land. It is still a long way off," Mr. Pai said.

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