HYDERABAD, 25 August — Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu yesterday said that if India were to compete with China and emerge as an IT superpower, it would have to make its IT policy more attractive to attract the foreign IT hardware majors.
“We are comparing ourselves with China and Israel, but they are moving fast and we are lagging behind in the IT hardware sector. We (the National Task Force on IT) had given our suggestions in 1998 to help India catch up. But most of the recommendations have not been implemented. We are losing time and it is time we put pressure on the government (New Delhi) to take necessary steps,” he said.
Inaugurating a two-day national conference on Advantage Hardware here, Naidu said that during his visits abroad and in his interaction with the captains of global IT majors, he was told that India’s policy on IT (hardware) was not attractive enough.
Touching on the global scenario, Naidu said that 32 out of the Global 500 companies are in the IT hardware and electronics sector. Their global revenues grossed $1,009 billion, including IT hardware at $335 billion and electronics at $758 billion. India’s share was just $15 billion, which was not even half a percent of the global turnover in this sector.
He said that China was already the third largest IT producer in the world, with $37 billion exports in the year 2000.
He said that while software sector in India has grown at over 50 percent cumulative average growth rate in recent years, the hardware sector has not crossed 20 percent growth rate. He said that the National Task Force had recognized software and hardware as the two sides of the same gold coin. But it was unfortunate that the Task Force recommendations were not implemented.
He also announced a new liberalized electronic hardware policy to facilitate growth of world class hardware industry in the state, to complement its success in the software sector.
The main thrust of the new policy is to create state-of-the-art infrastructure such as power, telecommunications, roads, drainage etc. and provide them at the doorstep of the proposed industry in identified areas.
The state government has identified an area of 5,000 acres adjacent to the proposed international airport at Shamshabad for development of an international standard Hardware Park. Initially, an area of 100 acres will be developed as a pilot with all the required infrastructure by the state owned APIIC with private sector participation.
The hardware units will be exempted from statutory power cuts and they will be also be allowed 50 percent exemption on stamp duty, registration duty etc. Twenty percent investment subsidy on capital investment on land building, plant and machinery upto maximum of two million rupees will be given to eligible SSI and tiny units.
Whenever industries are located in places other than designated industrial areas, the government will share the cost of infrastructure up to 25 percent or 10 million rupees, whichever is less.
