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Minutes of the meeting of the Co-Chairperson of the National Task Force. Date : 3rd April 1999 The meeting was chaired by Professor M. G. K. Menon, Co-Chairperson, National Task Force on Information Technology & Software Development. List of memebrs and invitees who attended the meeting is enclosed at Annexure I. Prof. M. G. K. Menon, in his opening remarks expressed the view that the suggestion for establishing the Ministry of Informatics by merging Department of Telecommunications, Department of Electronics and Ministry of Information & Broadcasting should to be taken up at a higher level and therefore need not be discussed in the Task Force. Dr. Seshagiri clarified that this suggestion was made by Shri Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister, Andhra Pradesh and Co-Chairperson of the National task Force on IT & Software Development in his submission to the Prime Minister. Prof. Menon felt that while the Task Force should highlight the urgent need of facilitating the convergence of computers, telecommunications and broadcasting technologies, the issue of formation of the combined ministry may be kept out of the scope of discussions at the Task Force. Prof. Menon then invited the members to express their views on various aspects of the Background Report 3 (BR-3). The summary of deliberations in the meeting is given below:
With regard to enhancing the per capita productivity of IT professionals at the level higher than that of Israel and USA, it was felt that while we may retain the reference to Israel, the reference to USA may be deleted as USA being a major market for Indian companies an intent of surpassing USA may affect marketing opportunities for Indian companies in that country. With regard to the suggestion for administrative departments to ensure appropriate salary levels in this sector, it was felt that this may become counter productive as it may cause further brain drain of Indian IT professionals. It was therefore suggested that the salary issue may be left to the market forces only. The enforcement of existing laws is difficult merely through the provision of specialized legal support, since the Act has to be implemented within the existing judicial system. The provision of 50% is not clearly mentioned in Section 80HHE. It should be made applicable to product software export revenue also. The India Brand Equity Fund should be made use of more effectively to develop brand image for Indian software products. The price preference to software companies is not considered to be an attractive enough incentive for promoting indigenous software. Instead, the companies should be given incentives at the input stage such as 133% depreciation by users (compared to 100% for imported packages). In addition, mechanisms should be put in place to make it easier for Indian organizations, particularly in government, to use the indigenous products and give domain expertise to help improve the products for attaining international standards. It was felt that non-fiscal incentives to IT companies through appropriate ‘enabling provisions’ such as large government and corporate users collaborating with IT companies will go a long way in building products requiring intensive Domain Knowledge. There is a need to evolve an institutional mechanism to ensure that only the right kind of companies can get listed on international stock exchanges such as NASDAQ, NYSE. In the absence of such a mechanism the credibility of even the good Indian companies may get adversely affected as has happened in case of Chinese companies. Electronic Commerce (EC) will not effect the actual movement of goods being physically traded. Similarly, the need for personnel to travel and work at user locations will not be reduced due to network based software development. EC makes the turn-around time faster. Task Force should recommend same level of incentives for all software products and services instead of identifying a few selected areas. In view of this, the paragraph referring to ERP will be dropped. Due to extensive Net specific product development and newly emerging concept of ‘component’ based products, it is possible to achieve high turn-around time in product development, marketing and support. These trends are threatening conventional large software development. Indians have excelled in these newly emerging technologies around the world using innovative concepts of product development. The component based development requires extensive patenting of small products/components. Call Centres for a variety of services offer a very large potential in the area of IT-enabled services. However, we neither have adequate infrastructure nor the administrative mechanism to support extension of Toll Free telephone services from developed countries such as US and Europe for Call Centres based in India to support customers located in these regions. For enabling establishment of such services in India, it is essential to have a Single Window Clearance in DOT for this purpose. This para may be dropped. Amendment to service rules should be done with care to ensure that the normal administrative functions are not affected and procedures are not manipulated to create pecuniary advantage to a section of the employees who may not be adequately innovative and productive. With regard to the discussion on various points in HRD report such as facilities similar to minority institutions, it was clarified that the final version of the HRD Working Group report, which was circulated to the members in the meeting, has already taken care of all these issues. Annexure-I List of participants in
the meeting of the National Task Force Co-Chairperson, National Task Force on IT & SD Chairman Member Convener, Secretary, Department of Education Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting Secretary, Department of Electronics Secretary, Ministry of Commerce Managing Director, Eastern Software President, NASSCOM Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Vice Chairman, WIPRO Limited ADG, WESEE Managing Director, NIIT Ltd. Sr. Adviser (Technology), CII Deputy Chief of Army Staff (P&S), Army Hq, Member, Telecom Commission IT Adviser, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh Indian National Academy of Engg. Member (Traffic), Railway Board Deputy Director General, NIC Deputy Director General, NIC Deputy Director General, NIC Deputy Director General, NIC Director, Ministry of Human Resource Development Special Secretary to the Chief Minister of AP  
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