The mission will explore and study the possibilities for increasing steel trade and will identify areas of technology transfer. The members of the mission will have business meetings with US counterparts, associations and organisations involved in the steel industry like American Institution for International Steel and Steel Consumers and Traders Associations. This mission will meet officials of US Department of Commerce and Trade Authority and visit different Steel Plants in USA.

    "I am happy to be here with all of you at this first Conference of Ministers of Information Technology.

    Looking at the participants, however, I wonder whether it is a conference of Ministers or of Chief Ministers. The fact that over a dozen Chief Ministers have chosen to attend this Conference themselves shows three things:

    First, that India has come of age and embraced Information Technology as the principal engine of rapid growth.

    Second, the Centre has accorded a very high priority to this sector by not only taking many bold and far-reaching policy initiatives, but also actively involving the State Governments in the implementation of these initiatives.

    Third, the State Governments have in a very short time, responded enthusiastically to the opportunities offered by IT. Sometimes, State Governments seem to be in an even greater hurry to achieve results than the Centre.

    There is also an intense and healthy competition among the States to outperform each other in IT. When I inaugurated the software technology park in Bangalore, in November 1998, I had commended this spirit of competition and said: "Let a Hundred Bangalores Bloom". Today, in less than two years, we have seen scores of software development centres coming up all across the country. At the same time, I must also express my concern over the growing gap between IT-forward and IT-backward States. We must work together to reduce this gap.

    The conference is a striking illustration of the convergence of the priorities of the Centre and the States. Commitment to the development of Information Technology is today no longer limited to any particular party. It has transcended even ideological barriers. I only wish that all of us could develop a similar enthusiasm and determination to achieve speedy results in other areas of economic and social development.

    Therefore, IT is more than a technology. It is the name of the greatest opportunity that history has placed before our nation to achieve India’s all-round renewal. It teaches us what we as a nation can achieve if all of us work unitedly.

    Today, even developed nations have come to recognize India as a software superpower in the making. The shining successes of our IT professionals and entrepreneurs, both abroad and also here in India, are a testimony to our potential in this sector. Apart from the tangible benefits in terms of our soaring software exports, these successes have also brought us many intangible gains. They have brought about a sea change in the global image of India and Indians.

    All this, friends, is just the beginning. The best of India is yet to come. And, it is our collective responsibility to ensure that it comes soon.

    Recognizing that there is no place for a rigid departmental mindset in this sunrise sector, the Union Government has always promoted an inter-ministerial approach. I would like this approach to be further strengthened with complete co-operation and regular consultation between all the concerned ministries, departments, regulatory bodies, industry associations, and consumer organizations. The IT industry must view the Government as a friend and a facilitator, and we must view the industry as a valued partner in realizing our goals.

    I would especially like the speed of decision-making to be increased by removing bureaucratic outlooks and hurdles. If IT has forced business to conduct their operations at Internet speed, we in Government cannot afford to continue working in the same old style and at the same old speed.

    From the agenda papers for today’s conference, I can see that all the relevant aspects of the future growth of IT in India are included for discussion. I would like to briefly deal with what the Centre and the State Governments should together do in three critical areas of IT in India.

    1) Telecom Infrastructure: India must quickly build a world-class telecom infrastructure, without which we cannot become, a world leader in IT. All of us recognize that our country has achieved considerable progress in this regard. However, I have received both written and oral representations from many of you, as also from many IT entrepreneurs from India and abroad, voicing serious concern at the slow pace at which some of our telecom reforms are moving.

    The Government will speedily remove the bottlenecks that are slowing the development of India’s telecom infrastructure. The high-level Group on Telecom and IT Convergence, under the chairmanship of Finance Minister Shri Yashwant Sinha, is in the process of finalising many far-reaching recommendations. These will be implemented soon.

    Specially, the Government will implement one of the key components of the New Telecom Policy by opening up the National Long Distance Operations to the private sector before August 15. Recognising the benefits of large-scale competition, the Government has decided to fully deregulate NLDO, with no artificial restriction on the number of licenses to be issued. This will be subject to the licensees paying a stipulated entry fee and a share of their revenues. The country has already witnessed the gains of such a liberal licensing policy in the recent rapid proliferation of ISPs, and the sharply falling Internet tariffs for the consumer.

    Constraints of capacity in international data communication have already hampered the growth of Internet services in the country. The Government has already announced liberalisation of the framework for setting up satellite gateways. All applications in this regard will be processed quickly. However, since this in not an adequate answer to the problem, I would like to see the early demonopolization of undersea optical fibre connectivity. Towards this end, private ISPs will be allowed, either singly or jointly, to set up their own landing stations anywhere in India in collaboration with international undersea bandwidth carriers. In addition, VSNL will be asked to make necessary changes without any delay in the exclusive arrangement with its partner, so that the existing bandwidth available to India is fully utilised.

    (2) Education Infrastructure: Expanding and modernising India’s education infrastructure is central to out IT strategy. The domestic and foreign demand for well-trained Indian IT professionals is increasing rapidly. According to one estimate, this sector will create over 20 lakh new jobs by the end of this decade. This demand cannot be met without vastly increasing educational facilities. We also need to improve teaching of non-IT subjects by using computers and the Internet for all students. Conventional methods of education, certification, accreditation, and financing simply cannot help us to achieve such big leaps in quality and quantity. Wherever possible, educational institutions in the formal sector should join hands with those in the private sector in mutually beneficial ways.

    At the same time, we must make conscious efforts to ensure that good quality IT education does not remain a preserve of the rich and the English-educated. We must also make it available to students from poor and rural families, and especially to those from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and OBCs.

    The Government will soon set up a Task Force for preparing a long-term strategy for human resource development in IT. It will comprise the ministers for HRD, IT, and Finance. In view of the urgency of the problem, the Task Force will draw up a plan to optimally use the existing infrastructure of the IITs, RECs, other engineering colleges and educational institutions to double their student intake from the next academic year and triple it in the next two years.

    (3) IT for the Masses: The third area I wish to dwell upon is IT for the masses. No technology is an end in itself. What we do with that technology is far more important than the technology itself. If this was true about previous conventional technology, it is a hundred times truer for Information Technology.

    I am somewhat concerned about the elitist nature of the present development of IT in India. Let us never for a moment forget that IT, in the Indian context, cannot be barometer for reading the rising wealth of a small set of individuals. It must become an instrument for creating new wealth and prosperity for the nation combined with distributive justice. It must – and it can – help us in achieving our broad national objectives of eradication of poverty, removal of regional imbalances, and promotion of social justice and gender justice.

    What we need is a comprehensive Action Plan to promote IT for the masses in a big and visible way. We should select some select some projects that have a nation wide impact such as:

• a massive programme for rural phone connectivity;
• greater penetration of IT in traditional industries and agriculture;
• increased use of IT in governance;
• time-bound computerization and networking of banks;
• computerization of land records and judicial records;
• enabling all the commercial establishments, including, small and medium ones, to conduct e-commerce;
• for despatch use of e-mail services in Indian languages; and
• making all the civic and transportation utilities citizen- friendly with the use of IT.

    I would like this Conference to come up with specific and practical suggestions to implement this multi-pronged strategy.

    With these remarks, I inaugurate this conference and wish it all success.

    Thank you."