Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday exhorted the Indian IT industry to emerge from the 'comfort zone' of providing low-end services and challeged it to come out with a 'Nano' of IT for the masses.

Majority of the revenue for the Indian IT industry continues to come from low value addition jobs like manpower provisioning and low-end support services, Modi said in Bangalore at the ICT event Bangalore IT.biz.

"The industry should come out of this comfort zone and engage itself in creating value for the company and also adding value to the manpower which is working for it", he said,  inaugurating the exhibition of the three-day event, in which Gujarat is the partner State.

Modi stressed that the IT industry has to reinvent itself, must focus on innovations, and on systems rather than being comfortable with services.

"It must invest in R&D. It must develop sustainable products.

"While services may offer marginal advantage over costs, the payoffs against the product development are huge", he said, adding, "it was understandable till the industry was trying to stand on its feet, but now having grown healthy, it must show foresight."

"Why cannot we develop MS Windows in India, or a Google or a Yahoo ? If an Indian can develop Hotmail and given that 30 per cent of Windows developers may well be Indians in any case, the task does not look all that difficult. What is required is a leap of faith, a paradigm shift", he said. 

Modi said it is that leap of faith which is going to give India 'A Nano Car in One Lakh Rupees'. Even the most optimist Indians did not believe that it could be done.

This (nano car) has potential to revolutionise the automobile industry and put India among the innovative best in the world, he said. 

"With all the abundance of Indian IT talent available on tap, when is it that we will come out with a 'Nano' of IT, with holistic and accessible solutions for the mankind", the chief minister asked.

Noting that the current global slowdown has challenged the Indian IT-BPO industry also, he said it's a rare opportunity for the IT industry to show its capacity in sustaining the growth momentum.

In addition to the outsourcing model, the IT industry has to look at the growth opportunities in the domestic market. There is still a vast Indian platform which remains untouched with this revolution.

Modi said inspite of phenomenal growth, the productivity of the Indian IT industry is quite low. Even today, the average realisation per employee of an Indian IT company is one twentieth, or lower, of the global leaders like Microsoft or HP. 

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