Indian researchers combine Information Technology (IT) and engineering skills to discover new drugs and cutting the design and testing process by years and rushing critical drugs to the market faster and cheaper. Group leader Rohit Mathur, like any other staffer at the Tata Consultancy Services software development centre in Noida, Andhra Pradesh state can be treated at the 24-hour medical centre, work out at the gym, check out books from the library, eat subsidised food in the cafeteria and ask the help desk to pay his bills, deliver flowers to a friend and courier some urgent documents.
And Ashish Mittal, like all post-graduate students in Amity University, was given his own laptop when he enrolled at the campus in Noida which claims to be the first in the world after Harvard to go completely wireless.
These are just some of the ways in which IT, India's top export, has transformed the sub-continent over the past two decades.
The industry has even turned some of its challenges into strengths.
IT software and services earned US$12.8 billion in 2003-04, out of the country's total US$20 billion exports.
Although India's IT sector accounts for three percent of the world market, said National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) president Kiran Karnik, it is the leader in the "offshore" market with a 30 percent share.
The industry is the biggest employer, providing jobs for over a million Indians and spurring the growth of ancillary industries including transportation, real estate and catering -- while swelling the government's coffers through taxes and boosting consumer spending.
"Using IT as a catalyst of economic development and for the welfare of the masses has paid rich dividends," Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath told Bernama in an interview here.
The global sourcing model popularised by IT and IT-enabled services has reversed the brain drain, attracting people of Indian origin and young expatriates to work in India, he said.
IT has increased productivity, quality and cost-effectiveness in sectors including manufacturing and services, Nath said.
India's top software company, Tata Consulting Services (TCS), not only provides a totally self-sufficient work environment for staff at centres such as the one in Noida, but tries to breach the digital divide for other citizens.
The company helps to set up the e-kiosks in villages and is training experts to develop computer programmes in India's local scripts and languages, said its Regional Director for Asia-Pacific, Girija Pande.
Within six months, it will also complete a US$80 million project in Delhi to automate the company register so that the information will be available on the Web.
NASSCOM's Karnik said the industry had matured because it had had to tackle infrastructure and power bottlenecks.
Over the past year, he noted "growth constraints" at airports serving IT hubs because limited airline capacity and staff at the airports were unable to cope with the two-way flow of customers, buyers and employees.
In some areas, with five or six hours of blackouts per day, industries require standby generators.
"All this takes up managerial attention and raises the cost, although it provides spinoffs for contractors providing these backup services," Karnik said.
But the flip side is that while the West is so used to everything being there that they have problems coping with adversity, the Indians are trained to be prepared for contingencies and plan for them.
India's "business continuity planning" is able to cope with anything ranging from breakdowns to floods to terrorists, said Karnik.
The TCS software development centre in Noida is an example, with its own underground water supply, power backup and an outsourced transportation fleet.
The company employs over 45,000 people of 30 nationalities to provide IT consulting, services and Business Process Outsourcing in 36 countries.
But its biggest achievement may be psychological, said Pande:
As he put it: "If we can do it in IT, we can do it in other things. That's the subtle message to the next generation....We've shown everyone that we are not a land of snake-charmers but a land with a large wealth of English-speaking talents."
Autor: Santha Oorjitham
Quelle: Bernama, 14.07.2005
