NEW DELHI, INDIA: If President Obama won the US elections by leveraging online media and in the neighboring Bangladesh, veteran leader Sheikh Hasina came back to power using 'Digital Bangladesh' as a slogan, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India has gone a few steps ahead. It has actually released a comprehensive IT vision document that it says is an integral part of its yet-to-be-released overall election manifesto.

This is coming of age of Indian politics. Or should one say Indian IT? Whichever way you look at it, the step is historic. This marks the beginning of IT being hyphenated with bijli, sadak, pani as an essential elements of good governance.

The very act of creating an IT vision document and releasing it with a lot of fanfare in the presence of almost all its senior leaders - the prime ministerial candidate L K Advani, party president Rajnath Singh, senior leaders Arun Shourie, Jaswant Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, and Ravi Shankar Prasad - itself shows the importance given to IT by one of the two main national parties in India.

But what is pleasantly surprising is that the vision is not a 20,000 feet view, an expression of intent. It is almost a blueprint.

Some of it is revolutionary, some of it is old wine in new bottle, some of it is even an attempt to take credit for what is well-established and existing. But all of them are well-integrated, and have been thought through.

Pradyut Bora, the national convener of the IT cell in the party, who is the main force behind it, has all the answers at minute levels.

Take, for example, the promise of Rs. 10,000 laptop. The mood with which you greet this one today is skepticism, more than anything else. Haven't we seen enough of such promises?

But here is the salvo. “All these would have dual core processors with at least 2 GB RAM,” clarifies the very power point slide that makes the big promise. “And they will be manufactured, not just assembled in India,” it adds.

“Any company that wishes to compete for the order will have to manufacture the chips here,” explains Bora. Mr Otelini, are you listening?

And this is not an exception. Almost all plans are accompanied by measurable targets and a level of detailing we do not often see even in corporate presentations.

Take for example, an overall measure of the success of the IT game plan. “Presently, India ranks 132 in the UNDP Human Development Index. By doing all these, we want to take India to a position of 50 or above in five years,” says the document.

New Gen Populism

The vision document summarizes the promises: har Hindustani ka bank khaata (a bank account for all Indians),

Har BPL parivar ko smart phone (a smart phone for every family below poverty line), har gaon mein broadband suvidha (broadband facilities in every village), har school mein Internet shiksha (Internet education in each school) all of which culminate in one slogan: sabko rozgaar; shaasan janata ke dwaar (employment for all, governance at the doorstep of people)

Of course, the biggest announcement was the target to create 1.2 crore jobs. Here too, you have the instant calculation that accompanies the promise: on an average 20 jobs to be created per village and with 6 lakh villages in India, you have the big figure.

Interestingly, while the list of jobs features everything from agri-business to healthcare, it also included rural BPO and rural content creation in local language.

Here is our own piece of calculation. Even if we assume that one in every 20 jobs would be in one of these two areas, that is still six lakh rural BPO/content jobs!

Some of the clarifications are noteworthy, though they may not have found a mention in the actual document. For example, Advani's clarification that all bank accounts may not be paper accounts, they may be in people's mobile phones, is an acknowledgement of the phenomenon of m-banking. .

More to do in Telecom

Reminding that it is the NDA government that, with its new telecom policy of 1999, took the telecom industry out of a deadlock and thus paved the way for the spectacular growth that we have seen since then, the BJP IT vision document mentioned specific new things that it will implement.

“We will implement TRAI's recommendation of unrestricted VoIP,” said Bora. Calling it the 4th wave, he said it would have similar impact on telecom usage as introduction of PCOs, mobile phones and CDMA had had in the past.

“Today broadband is defined as 256 kbps, while in most countries it is defined as 2 Mbps. We will change that. Today, you pay close to Rs. 35,000 for a 2 Mbps pipe with 1:1 contention ratio. We will bring that tariff to Rs. 200,” he said.

The Vision Document talks of building what it calls a National Digital Highway Development project to build a solid telecom backbone in the country. For the last mile, it has an equivalent of 'Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojanan'. They simply call it 'Pradhan Mantri Gram Digital Sadak Yojanan'.

Some of the other promises include

Multipurpose National Identity Card with Citizen Identification Number (CIN) to replace all other identification systems in three years. Advani linked its criticality with the Bangaladeshi migration problem, BJP's long-time political issue.

Establishment of a National Telemedicine Network and connecting all the primary health centers to this network

Introduction of a 1-800 toll free number for citizens to contact their MPs

Government of India to standardize on open source and open standards. An IT standard body will be spun put off BIS.

Incentives for domestic hardware industry to promote local products

Ensuring that all the software sold in India would be compatible with all the 22 scheduled languages in India. Establishment of a National Mission for promotion of IT in Indian languages

Establishment of a Digital Security Bureacu, an independent agency responsible for cyber counter-terrorism and ensuring cyber security for national assets

Creation of Special Internet Zones, to promote Internet hosting in India

“Rajivji (Rajiv Gandhi) once said in Kalahandi that if he sent Re 1 to the people, only 15 paisa reaches them,” said Advani. “We will use IT to ensure that the recipient gets the full one rupee,” he added, summarizing the impact that IT would have on the development of under-developed regions.

“Some of the things have already been implemented in BJP-ruled states. Now, we will do it nationally,” said Arun Shourie, senior BJP leader.

He said the IT vision has two objectives: one broad objective of using IT to serve common people and second is to reorient the Indian IT industry to have domestic focus. He also hinted at the possibility of a hardware policy, if BJP came to power.

This may well be BJP's stimulus package for driving India's (and in particular Indian IT industry's) next phase of growth. But the big question is: what is its likelihood of its coming to power, with many major allies turning away from it and, as the mainstream media pointed out, in the wake of growing rift within the party?

And don't forget: this is BJP's IT vision, not NDA's. So, while development goals such as low-cost PC and telecom will not have too many hurdles in the way to implement, when it comes to issues like open source, 1-800 numbers to contact MPs, or even implementation of a national identity system, it is bound to see new discussion.

But all that apart, the very fact that IT has been recognized as something that can win you elections by a large national party, itself is a great boost to life the sentiment of the industry in the short run and its level of participation in nation-building in the long run.