The Hindu : Business : ‘IT special zones increasing digital divide’

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Thursday, Sep 20, 2007
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‘IT special zones increasing digital divide’

Staff Reporter

Jairam Ramesh asks Nasscom to proactively engage with State governments

NEW DELHI: Expressing concern over the “slow geographical spread” of information technology, Union Minister of State for Commerce, Jairam Ramesh, on Wednesday said IT special economic zones (SEZs) were further increasing the digital divide.

Addressing the Executive Board of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), Mr. Ramesh said, “SEZs appear to be increasing the digital divide. I have always felt that the true value of SEZs must be judged by the extent to which they help promote labour-intensive manufacturing.”

“But so far, of the 142 SEZs notified, 86 are for IT and IT-enabled services (ITeS) units alone. And of these 86, the usual suspects are most prominent — 26 in Andhra Pradesh, 14 in Tamil Nadu, 13 in Karnataka and 10 in Maharashtra, making a total of 80 per cent in these four States alone,” he added.

He asked Nasscom to proactively engage with State governments that are now not on the IT radar screen prominently and work with them to develop promising locations. “If Nasscom and a couple of companies get serious, I believe infrastructure and connectivity issues will also begin to get addressed by the Centre in a more time-bound manner. It is a classic chicken and egg situation — IT majors are not present in the Northeast and therefore there is no pressure to improve infrastructure,” he added. Mr. Ramesh also said that India must now begin to aggressively use its IT industry to build new economic partnerships in countries that were vital to its interests.

“It is well-known that the development of our IT capability has had a profound impact on Indo-U.S. relations. As the author of Chindia I have absolutely no doubt that Chinese attitudes towards us underwent a fundamental shift when our IT export industry emerged in the U.S. in such a stunning manner,” he added.

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