'IT industry doesn't want govt support, sops'

National Institute of Information Technology chairman Rajendra S Pawar was one of the leading lights of the Indian industry who interacted with European businessmen at the first-ever Indo-European Union business summit on June 27 in Lisbon, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

He spoke to Y Siva Sankar on the summit sidelines. Excerpts:

On whether he would agree with the view that the Indian infotech industry should move beyond software engineering:

Well, I think this is not a new view. Everybody has been saying that we have to keep moving up the value chain. And it is correct to say that as companies gain experience, they will move up the value chain because as you gain experience and knowledge, you package that knowledge and move up.

So it is not a new argument. I think it is evolution, an outcome. It is just like as an industry matures, and becomes stronger in certain areas… -- Indian companies are still very young in software, and they are beginning to see… if you see the dot-com phenomenon, most of them are technologies and products. So I would think whatever is happening, we don't need to have a special policy statement on that. It is an evolutionary phenomenon.

On whether the government should play a proactive role in promoting the infotech industry abroad.

If you look at the role the government played when Mr Vittal (former chairman of the Infotech Taskforce and the current Chief Vigilance Commissioner) was there, would we say that it was not supportive? I think the government was extremely supportive. So it's rhetoric. This whole is a rhetoric that you can do with or without.

Once we know that the government has put IT as the number one priority, the industry can only benefit. That's my view.

You should have seen the Department of Electronics during the time: it was a tremendous boost. They worked to remove all hurdles. So, I think, we don't want support and sops. However, we definitely want the government to play its role in removing obstacles.

On whether he foresees any problems for the infotech industry vis-à-vis the government's proactive role:

I see no symptoms of any problem. We've only seen good stuff in the last seven or eight years.

On professionals such as himself rising to the top in Corporate India.

There are many examples. Our industry is full of such examples. In the past, the whole industrial scenario was different. It was extremely capital-intensive. And wealth was concentrated in a few hands. There were procedures. So it took a certain capability to be part of a large industrial family. You would not deal with issues of large investments and procedures. But today, that is not so.

Today, we are seeing that once again you can be in software… and a good example…you don't need that level of capital. You have to have an idea; you have to have the wherewithal, and that is all. rediff.com is a good example.

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