India to have 100 million phones by 2005: Pramod Mahajan

NEW DELHI: Pramod Mahajan, minister for Information Technology,

Telecommunications and Parliamentary Affairs, will draw up a strategy to achieve

a target of 100 million telephone lines in India by October 2004. The total

target for a 10-year period will be 500 million telephones.



Speaking at the India-Singapore conference on Information & Communications
Technology organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and

PricewaterHouse Coopers in Singapore, the minister said that India offered a

huge market to Singapore firms. He said a major opportunity lay in eGovernance.

The government had a total strength of 25 million people and was working on

educating and making them IT savvy. This would lead to a huge market for the

Singapore firms, Mahajan said.



He also said that the information and communications industry was passing
through a bad phase due to the global recession. And to overcome this there was

a need to tap the existing and emerging opportunities in the sector in both the

countries. The minister said his government wanted to create a reservoir of 10

million Indians in the knowledge sector for outsourcing by other countries.

"We want to be the reservoir of knowledge for the world", he said.



CII president Sanjiv Goenka said that over the years India and Singapore had
recognized the immense potential for working together in the IT sector.

"Clearly there are many complementaries and in recognition of this

potential a CEOs’ forum comprising leaders in the industry in both countries

has been set up by the CII and Infocom Development Authority," he said.



Singapore with its outstanding infrastructure, its strategic location in the
region and efficient manufacturing base could partner effectively with the

software skills in India, the CII president said. The India-Singapore IT

corridor could make a significant mark across global markets, Goenka added.



Kaizad Herjee, assistant CEO of Infocom Development Authority of Singapore said
that the two countries were working towards sending a joint delegation to the

top third country markets like China. He said that a lot of synergy existed

between India and Singapore, and IDA had opened offices in Bangalore and

Shanghai to tap the Chinese market with Indian help. He said that Singapore

firms could help in tapping the ASEAN and Chinese markets while Indian firms

could explore the European and US markets.



The other speakers were Tarun Das, director general, CII; Sunil Bharti Mittal,
the chairman of Bharti Group; Rajendra Pawar, chairman of NIIT; B Ramalinga Raju,

chairman, Satyam Computer Services; Jerry Rao, chairman, Mphasis; Ganesh

Natarajan, CEO, Zensar Technologies; Yoong-Sim Hong Siang, CEO, Network i2I; and

Roopen Roy, head of management consulting services, PricewaterHouse Coopers.