Now, Jairam says SEZs increasing digital divide

He may have apologised to Culture Minister Ambika Soni over his comments on the Sethusamudram ‘affidavit’ fiasco, but Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh has now picked on a bigger target close to his own Udyog Bhawan office—his immediate senior, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath. Addressing a Nasscom board meeting in the Capital on Wednesday on his concerns about the “slow geographical spread” of the IT sector in the country, Ramesh said Special Economic Zones (SEZs) “appear to be increasing the digital divide”.

“I have always felt that the true value of SEZs must be judged by the extent to which they help promote labour-intensive manufacturing. But so far, of the 142 SEZs notified, 86 are for IT and ITES alone. And of these 86, the usual suspects are most prominent—26 are in Andhra, 14 in Tamil Nadu, 13 in Karnataka and 10 in Maharashtra making a total of 80 per cent in these four states alone,” Ramesh told the captains of the IT industry. “The demand and aspiration to participate in the IT revolution is there across the length and breadth of this vast country (there are 285 towns and cities where NIIT has its centres, as a rough indicator of this desire) but I am afraid neither the Government nor the industry has shown any great sense of urgency here,” he said, before demonstrating how a bulk of the $32 billion IT exports in 2006-7 came from a handful of locations.

“Of the 46 locations with software technology parks, just seven locations account for 95 per cent of the IT exports—Bangalore, National Capital Region, Chennai , Hyderabad, Pune, Navi Mumbai and Kolkata; 19 cities together account for 3.8 per cent whereas 13 other cities together contribute a measly 0.03 per cent. Seven cities—Warangal, Imphal, Gangtok, Durgapur, Kharagpur, Siliguri and Jammu—contribute nothing,” Ramesh pointed out. Apart from SEZs, Ramesh was also critical of IITs. “I have always felt that the IITs have had great global impact but their local impacts have not been commensurate with the hype that has come to surround them.”

Some strong words were reserved for the country’s “top leaders” and industry honchos as well. “I find an obsession with technology dangerous. Many of our top politicians and our IT industry chieftains have given ample evidence of their affliction on this account. Technology is always embedded in a social context and unless we focus on the core, unless we always keep in mind the adage—technology is the answer but what was the question—we are liable to be disillusioned soon,” Ramesh said.