Asoke K. Laha
President & MD,
Interra IT
Let me explain an incident that has taken place a couple of days back. There was a heated debate as to what would be the policy framework if there is a change in government at the centre. Ideations have flown in frenzy. Without going into the nitty -gritty of their talk, two streams of thoughts were to be discerned. One set of people thought that there will be a sea change in the policy framework of the new government, particularly when the new government will be led by the present opposition benches. The other set of arguments was that there will not be any perceptible change in the policy of the new government. They held the view that rhetoric is a part and parcel of the election fever. There ends the era of promises and a new awakening grip the governance structure as to how to implement or continue with the existing policies. It is one thing to criticize when in opposition and a different ball game to give a stable policy.
Let us look at some of the promises that have been made by the political parties. Almost all of them have promised more growth, income and employment generation. An interesting promise dished out by a leader was that if his party comes into power, it will shore up the value of rupee in terms of other currencies. According to the leader, a weak rupee was synonymous with a weak India. Yet another promised reining in inflation in the next three months, if the party he represents come into power. Let me mention about a promise of a presidential candidate made decades back, which I believe the mother of all promises. That candidate promised that if he was elected as the President of India, he would build a high rise wall along the borders of India, so that enemies could not penetrate into the country. When asked that India has a substantial coast line and how the wall could withstand the high tide, his stock answer was that the wall he proposed to build could with stand the inundation of the sea-water during the high tide. Promises galore!!
An advertisement that is beamed by an internet telephony company in the TV, to me, seems to be an eye-catching one. It also signifies how the voters nail the candidate’s lies. One candidate in his election trail promises a bonanza for the voters. One clever fellow immediately switch on to his mobile phone and surf the net to find out that this promise was dished out by the same candidate earlier also. One can imagine the level of discomfiture of the candidate. The other catchy advertisement is about an young fellow caught by the traffic police for violating the traffic rules. The young man tried to play tricks on the cop by dropping the name of senior police officer as his father. The alert cop browses through the net and the finds out that the invoked officer was a chronic bachelor. I feel that the next time around, our voters should be more vigilant against such tricksters and should not let them go just like that. That also will be a major contribution of technology for conducting free and fair elections.
I was particularly happy when some political parties harped on manifestos for every constituency. But there is a catch in that approach. What is good for one constituency may not be relevant for the other rather they may be in conflict with each other. How do we reconcile such differences? The solution lies in evolving a highly decentralized governance apparatus and at the same time creation of a strong central government that should act as the watch dog of the developmental process and take care of the common issues such as defence, internal security, monetary and fiscal systems. The contentious issues of the states should be sorted out amicably in the framework of a give and take policy. A pertinent question arises as to how effective will be such system that sorts out the contentious issues.
Some years back a political party has come out with a novel idea in its manifesto. That was to give complete freedom from economic point of view to all states to chalk out the development projects. It also enunciated that import and exports would remain in the precincts of the state government. A part of the export earnings the states will have to share with the centre to meet its needs. The same was the case with imports also. The states would have to find ways and means to fund to pay for the imports. This time around, I am told that major political party has come out with similar suggestions, though I did not have the opportunity to read the fine print of the manifesto nor did I see any of the newspaper reports towards that end.
Presently, all the proceeds of the exports are going into the central kitty. So also the foreign investment coming into the country is channelized through central agencies. Once the states are empowered to act on their own, there will be a spurt in economic activities. In the present dispensation, I believe that there is an element of inertia among the states to develop since they have to always look forward to the central government to help them and bail them out in case of any financial crisis.
Being an IT entrepreneur, I have also other suggestions, which fall on that domain. Those states, which are looking forward to beef up their foreign exchange earnings under the suggested dispensation, should roll out special incentive schemes for software and hardware exports. There is a Damocles sword swinging all the time on software exporters. They are apprehensive that the income tax incentives in terms of tax holidays may be withdrawn anytime, affecting their competitiveness in the international market. Though income tax comes under the central subject, the state governments can introduce some state-specific incentives to attract more people setting up IT firms in the state.
Another incentive that can be extended to the IT entrepreneurs is giving a critical push to e-governance in the state. That will enhance the business opportunities and enable the software exporters to hedge their risks in the export market.
