India lacks infrastructure for innovations: Pitroda

The lack of infrastructure support for innovation in India is a key stumbling block, says WorldTel chairman Sam Pitroda.

Addressing a meeting of the Young Entrepreneurs Society (YES) last week, Pitroda said, "In today's era of globalisation, intellectual property rights have become more significant. Unfortunately, there is very little innovation in business today. India must learn to invent very quickly. But there is no infrastructure to support innovations. The patent department in the country is obsolete. Most of the inventions today, nearly 50 per cent are IT-related and there is very little innovation taking place in the field of agriculture or biotechnology."

Speaking on the theme of youth empowerment, Pitroda said that while globalisation is here to stay, in order to succeed in this environment, innovation, adaptability to change one's mindset and a passion to be a successful entrepreneur are key to success.

"It is always advisable to employ young and energetic people rather than experienced people as the youth is committed and ready to learn. Experienced people will not unlearn what they have learnt, thereby jeopardising set goals," he added.

Pitroda's firm has recently introduced a new innovative concept whereby the local public call offices (PCOs) may be used for making telephone bill payments to banks, the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) and PCO enjoying a common broadband said, "e-Governance is key to improving public services. PCO/STD booths should be converted into 'transaction centres' for payment of bills and cheque. This was the reason to introduce Mobile Wallet, which should take care of many problems."

Vijay G Kalantri, president of the All India Association of Industries (AIAI), in his address noted that the telecom revolution in India has already resulted in most of the villages becoming well connected with the outside world.

"With the tremendous development in the telecom sector, we have to grow and do away with redundant laws. We should have pressure groups to work on it," he added.