Borrowing a leaf from the highly successful IT sector

  

Photo: User Gflores on en.wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons            

                                             

There was an interesting online event on the evening of Friday, 29-April-2022. Prof D. B. Phatak and Mr. Harish Mehta were the speakers. Mr. H. R. Mohan was the organiser. The focus was on the book:

The Maverick Effect: The Inside Story of India's IT Revolution

by Harish Mehta, 348 pages, HarperBusiness

  I have bought the book just now (available in e-book form as well) and have not read it yet, but I had listened to the speakers carefully and will share my own thoughts.

1.   The magic of IT was let loose when our pioneers realised in the eighties that the world market for services of software professionals was very big. Indian demand for such services was minuscule at that time.

2.   This must be seen in the light of experience of countries like U. K. I remember a conversation in the nineties with a senior British computer professional. U. K. had been a very significant contributor to innovations in IT. They had contributed to advances in computer and network architecture, good software like the George series of operating systems, and protocol suites for computer networking, etc., not to mention their fundamental invention of stored program computers! However, at that time they were switching to Unix, C, TCP/IP etc. The professional I mentioned above explained it by saying that the U. K.’s IT economy was a mere 3% of the world’s IT economy. “The tail does not wag the dog”, he said. Our pioneers were right. The IT revolution would come to us from those who addressed the world market. 

3.   One of the questions many members in the audience raised was what next? Indian IT industry has been a great success with only five million employees (approximately). Can we go beyond our current focus in this area, and achieve more? Harish Mehta had a good answer. NASSCOM, the National Association of Software and Service Companies, would only deal with areas in which it believes it will succeed.

4.   The challenge to the nation remains. How can we promote worldwide market access to Indian companies offering different types of professional services?

5.   We should note the Indian experience in the engineering consultancy field. Dr F. C. Kohli was heading the sizable engineering consultancy unit of the Tata Group, Tata Consulting Engineers back in 1966-69. Consultancy to clients abroad was not new to him. Engineers India Ltd, 51.5% owned by Govt of India, offers consultancy around the world. Visit https://engineersindia.com/

  There are, of course, many other companies in the engineering consultancy field. Somehow, nothing like the miracle of the Indian Software Revolution has taken place in this field. There is no visible association to highlight achievements and difficulties in this field. There is no shortage of manpower here, as approximately a million engineers graduate every year. 

6.   There are other fields in which Indian professional expertise is finding a world market, for instance: online and media-based education, and Indian lawyers and auditors providing their services. Some of this may be covered by the “IT based services” label. Do these fields not require their own associations? Doesn’t the country want to support the growth of employment in these sectors?

7.   Smart people with the right contacts have always managed to work profitably for the world market in services. Prof JG Krishnayya mentioned to me during an interview that fifty years ago he had found in Kulu a doctor on an easy chair in a Forest Bungalow - he used to spend 3-5 months in UK as a locum and then laze uphill from Kulu for a few months.

      That raises a question: Is India too restrictive on Indian medical professionals working and earning money abroad? If we ensure that they pay for their education, they should be free to earn abroad. We may lose a significant fraction of our doctors, but there are millions willing to get educated and to replace them.

       Medical education is a profitable business. We should perhaps allow it to expand and to accept foreign students. Many of these decisions require significant government consideration and decision making. Currently, state governments give upcoming medical colleges some land at government rates, and then insist on tying them up in unnecessary restrictions such as favouring candidates from the state.   

8.   Tunisia has a Minister of Foreign Affairs, Migration and Tunisians Abroad. No doubt this is in recognition of the fact that Tunisian professionals working abroad make a major contribution to their economy. We also need Govt recognition that the magic of marketing professional services abroad need not be confined to IT alone.

9.   The farsighted Prof. Michael Dertozous of MIT had written in 2001 in his book “The Unfinished revolution” as follows:
“Just imagine what 50 million Indians could do to the English-speaking industrial world using their ability to read and write English and offer their skills, at a distance …”

All the 50 million professionals need not work “at a distance”. Like Prof Krishnayya’s doctor in Kulu, they could spend a few months abroad in a year, if it is necessary!  

  The book reference is to:
Dertouzos, Michael L., Paul Hecht, and Andrew Sydor. The unfinished revolution: Human-centered computers and what they can do for us. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.

The low rate of growth in India for a long time had been the result of self-imposed, unnecessary restrictions. Harish Mehta tells us the story of the time a customs officer had asked to be shown software being exported. On being shown a floppy containing software, he promptly stapled it to some document!

 

Writing off some Govt revenue to get rid of unimplementable and unnecessary restrictions has often led to manifold increase in the sector concerned and to growth of tax income. A large part of the revenue of software exporting companies is paid out as employee salaries. The five million employees of this fast-growing economy pay income tax on their salaries, making up for itty-bitty loss on customs duties on software exported on floppies!

  It would be valuable if the Ministry of External Affairs takes on this challenge of growth. MEA has five Secretaries now. It could perhaps add a sixth Secretary, who should be expected to emulate the legendary Mr. N. Vittal, who had played a big role in the Indian IT revolution.

Srinivasan Ramani