Govt cannot blame IT for its failures, say industry czars

The statement of Union minister for urban development, Jaipal Reddy, linking Bangalore’s traffic woes to the IT boom, has drawn sharp responses from captains of the digital world. The traffic problem is the outcome of the government’s lack of vision and will, they say.

That the IT boom has contributed much to the traffic growl is a fact, and the minister is right to that extent; but Reddy should look inward — the failure of the government and planning — before apportioning blame, they say.

“It’s true,” agreed Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairman and managing director of Biocon, “that IT success is what pushed Bangalore onto the global platform. But you can’t blame success. The government has not been proactive.” 

She does not believe that relocation of industry is a solution. “Solve the problem here,” she says.

Kris Gopalakrishnan, chief executive officer, Infosys, would also not blame IT for traffic woes. “Generally, growth outpaces infrastructure and it happened in IT, too. The solution is spending on a rail network, improving public transport and traffic management, and constructing elevated paths and underpasses. What the government ought to do for a city like Bangalore is to create overcapacity of infrastructure.”

Gardener, MindTree, Subroto Bagchi, says a boon cannot be called a curse. “Bangalore failed to cope with plenty. Prosperity brings its own problems. Bangalore has evoked US president Obama’s envy, but we see it as a problem! I have been seeing Bangalore for 22 years and the dawn of IT began in the late eighties. What were the governments doing to facilitate the growth?” Bagchi wondered.

“The government had a quarter century, to address the infrastructure needs. Look at Shanghai, it planned for the future,” Bagchi said. 

G Lakshminarayanan, vice-president of a global giant infotech company, would not dream of blaming IT for traffic mess. “What happened was while the industry grew in leaps and bounds thanks to the private enterprise, the government could not match the growth with infrastructure. Millions of dollars are promised at GIM and the government should focus on infrastructure now. It is doing it now but the pace should be accelerated,” he said.