'There is a darker side to India Shining'

Stating that the 'India Shining' mood and the feel good factor was for real and very encouraging, National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) president Kiran Karnik said that there were darker patches still and the government, industry, academia and funding agencies should join hands in solving problems the country is faced with.

Karnik said this while inaugurating a two day workshop on Scaling up Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Use for Poverty Alleviation in India, at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, from Thursday. The workshop is being jointly organised by Nasscom, IIM-A, World Bank and the Union Ministry of Information Technology.

"India Shining is like the moon, there is the shining part, but there is the darker side as well. There have been bright sparks where experiments in rural empowerment and taking ICT to the rural areas have been hugely successful. The question that needs to be addressed here is that why are these sparks not spreading like fire throughout the country," Karnik said.

Experts, policy makers and representatives of non government organisations who have been part of such initiatives, will deliberate on several aspects of using ICT in rural upliftment. Karnik said that while vested interests are everywhere, they are more complex in rural areas than in urban areas, where corruption is the overriding factor.

Workshop co-ordinator Subhash Bhatnagar said that till date, there have been as many as 250 experiments in spreading the benefits of ICT to the rural mass.

"Some have been very successful, some have not really had much effect and others have been outright failures. We will attempt to look at the success stories and how to carry them forward, enabling a wider reach," he said.

According to Bhatnagar, there is now a marked change in the stance of the government as far as promoting ICT in rural areas is concerned. "The government's attitude has changed a great deal now. It is willing to partner with private agencies to further this cause.

"I believe the combined effort of the government, voluntary agencies, funding agencies and industry will help scaling up ICT in the way it is intended," he said.

Robert Schware of the World Bank will deliver a paper on options for structuring a social applications fund and the need and importance of funds for such a purpose, on Friday.

"More than a decade ago in 1989-90, the World Bank had the opportunity to work with NASSCOM, when the software industry in India was not to big.

"Today, it has reached huge proportions," he said.