Prez urges India to tap15% global IT mkt

MUMBAI: President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam has urged the Indian IT industry to aim for a 15 percent of the business world's market in IT service, ITES and BPO by 2009, the market for which currently stands at $ 1.2 trillion. He was interacting with CEOs and members of the Nasscom, Executive Council in Mumbai through video conferencing from Rashtrapati Bhavan during the Valedictory function of NASSCOM-2005. Dr. Kalam said, "small aim is a crime" and thus Nasscom should raise its goals from 3.5 percent to 15 percent.






The President said that the mission for making India a developed country by the year 2020, is not only about getting added revenues from agriculture and industry but is also about increasing income through knowledge intensive products. Kalam asked the CEOs present to take this up as a challenge and was confident that it was achievable as risk takers always win.





He said that he was even more confident of the achievability of this goal since the university system is contributing over two million graduates including Engineering graduates every year. "This is a vital resource needed for growth in the IT Services, ITES and BPO. Now, what is needed is infrastructure establishments such as IT parks including call centers in large numbers for providing the services which can be established by the country's cash rich IT companies and the state governments," he opined. "We should aim at increasing the knowledge pool to five million Indian youth by the year 2008, which will enhance the existing efficiency by the factor of two", he added.





The President felt that there was a need to attain self-reliance in the infrastructure software sector with knowledge products, where the domain applications could be developed and deployed for the services sector.





Dr. Kalam said that to achieve competitiveness along with research results, an effective triangle of industries, researchers from academia, R&D and the student community should be created to develop innovative products.