Saturday, May 06, 2006

IT doesn't matter
This is not a Nicholas Carr kinda post where i go on a discourse on the efficacy of IT in organizations.it's fr the B-Schoolers to do that.This is more about the relevance of IT in our society.does the proliferation of IT companies matter??IT DOESN'T MATTER AT ALL.This statement might seem to be blasphemous to many,but i have my reasons.Today u find people with IT backgrounds in every nook and cranny of the country.If you go to any village in T.N , u would be surprised to find atleast a few households where a member of the family works for an IT company in the big cities.We have to be proud that such developments are happening in our country.But we overlook a fact.What effect does that have on that village.Nothing infact.At best u could find the old pucca house demolished and rebuilt again by the new "IT Money".A few "IT families" even shift from their village to the cities.Where has IT helped?? Yes ,it has in the urban centers of the country.It is altogether a different story that it has also messed up urban development,social fabric as evident in the case of bangalore.In that case what is the key to all-round development of the country.It has to be manufacturing.A classical case in point would be the now defunct Lakshmi Mills and loyal Mills , Kovilpatti.These played a very important role in the development of kovilpatti.It gave low-skill jobs to the fairly educated in thousands.They set up schools in Kovilpatti, which churns out students who do well in the bigger cities of India.Another case in point would be TISCO Jamshedpur.One single company which converted the tribal area into a bustling industrial belt that it is today. One can also look at Hosur,Tiruppur which changed the landscape of their respective districts.IT,skill-intensive and language intensive by nature can never help ordinary people meet their aspirations.If they need to go forward, they need to adopt villages, give good primary education and then talk.There is no point blaming the government for the malaise that has set in.All the IT companies can do is to impress their investors and may be their global clients which doesn't mean anything for the country.It's not enuf if they just rake in huge sums of profits.They need to do something bout their surroundings too.U cannot be an island of prosperity in a sea of poverty said Ratan Tata and nothing is closer to truth than this.