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Kalam calls for knowledge networks to transform India

Fakir Chand in Bangalore

President APJ Abdul Kalam has called for the development of networks of knowledge, transport and rivers to transform India into a developed country.

Inaugurating the fifth edition of Bangalore IT.Com 2002, in Bangalore Palace Grounds on Monday, Kalam said information technology and telecom should be used as tools for an integrated development and empowerment of the people to improve their quality of life.

"The rapid growth of the IT industry has enabled us to march towards the knowledge network. The building of the quadrilateral national highways and linking of the village roads will lead to a transport network through greater connectivity.

"What we need to bring about a river network is to link and integrate all the rivers across the country, and usher in rapid economic development," Kalam stated.

Stressing on the importance of the river network, Kalam said such a network would also tackle the perennial problem of droughts and floods, and prevent its precious waters from going into sea. I am of the view that unless all states prosper uniformly and make rapid progress on the frontiers of science and technology, the center and the nation will not able to achieve the desired goal of becoming a developed country by the end of this decade," Kalam cautioned.

As development and peace go together, Kalam said there was an urgent need to have a second vision for making India a superpower in knowledge and economy.

"The first vision took India about 90 years to achieve independence through a hard fought freedom struggle. We need a second vision to achieve economic strength that will be driven by competitiveness.

Competitiveness is driven by knowledge power that is powered by technology, and finally the latter is driven by resourceful investments," Kalam asserted.

In order to realize India's dream of becoming a super power in economy and technology, Kalam said the government would have to first empower the people.

"I will celebrate a day when IT goes to the remotest areas of the country, especially the seven states of north-east so that they all could benefit from tele-medicine, tele-education, e-governance, e-commerce, and e-culture," Kalam observed.

As the government alone cannot do everything, Kalam has urged the IT industry and the academia to make their mission to develop each of the states, particularly the backward ones such as Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and N-E states.

Referring to the growth of the IT industry, Kalam said if India has to become a world leader, then we have to go from IT products to knowledge products to value-added products.

"Unless we add value to our IT products, we cannot become competitive and global. Though the size of the Indian IT industry is about $10 billion with its workforce hovering around 5 million, it has a long way to go to catch with global multinational companies which generate $20 billion revenue with just 50,000 employees," Kalam recalled.

Hailing the growth of the Indian software industry, Kalam said the industry needed to move up the value chain by becoming robust and product oriented with greater R&D, including design development.

"Tremendous market potential exists in the domestic market itself, though it has remained flat at $2 billion over the last couple of years. The industry has to focus on education, healthcare, e-governance and e-business to touch the lives of common man," Kalam affirmed.

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