IT Revolution raises 15-20 million Indians above poverty line every year: Ashwani Kumar

Mumbai, 7th March: Since the advent of the 21st century, the telecom revolution has raised 290 million Indians above the poverty line, said Dr Ashwani Kumar, Union Minister of State for Industry. About 15 to 20 million poor rise to join the ranks of the middle classes every year – roughly equal to the population of Australia, he pointed out, speaking at the two-day conference on Communications Convergence organized by IMC at Hotel Hilton.

“By 2011, 58% of the rural population will have mobile phones, and 95% of urban people. 80 million phones are purchased every year, as against 15 million bicycles, indicating that India’s people are using mobiles rather than bicycles to achieve connectivity,” said the learned Union minister. Dr Kumar addressed a special session on ‘Telecom Revolution – Powering the Indian Industry’ here today.

However, he pointed out that there was a tremendous deficit in India’s capabilities for manufacturing IT and communications hardware. “If present growth trends continue, India’s import bill for electronics will exceed its oil import bill by 2050,” he pointed out.

Others who spoke at the special session were: Deepak Chhabria, MD, Finolex Cables; FC Kohli, Former Deputy Chairman of Tata Consultancy Services and doyen of the IT industry; and Ashank Desai, Chairman, Mastek Ltd. IMC’s past president Nanik Rupani chaired the session.

“IT is hardware, software and communications. And its development has made enterprises, government and individuals highly efficient,” Mr Kohli pointed out. “As late as in 2001, our position was that Indians were borrowers of technology, but not initiators. However, thanks to some major strides in government policy, we have made significant progress in this regard. We are now confidently able to state that we are initiators of technology too,” he said.

Speaking on the key role of cable technology in rendering wireless services, Deepak Chhabria pointed out that the precipitous drop in the cost of cabling over the past two decades had greatly aided the IT revolution. The use of fibre-optics was more prevalent now, enabling a massive increase in bandwidth. “And now, with the development of band-insensitive optic fibres, a new revolution is about to begin, wherein high levels of communications convergence through household wiring will turn the home into an ‘intelligent house’, with voice-activated controls and appliances that you can switch on and off remotely by a mobile call.”

Ashank Desai, who was formerly chairman of Nasscom in 1996-97, pointed out that IT professionals consumed about 60% of the nation’s telecom bandwidth. The bandwidth connecting India to the US had grown a millionfold over the past 20 years, while the cost had near halved in the last 3 years alone. He pointed out that poor physical infrastructure was choking growth of IT and communications. This included shortage of power, roads and telecom infrastructure in tier 2-3 cities, which could otherwise register massive growth in the IT and BPO sectors.

“There is also a need for convergence between ministries,” he pointed out. “Otherwise, a lot of necessary policy measures will fall through the cracks between different ministries and departments, which are unable to track the rapid growth of technologies.”