IT industry in India is underdeveloped: Kiran Karnik

AHMEDABAD: Member in the Prime Minister's Scientific Advisory Council Kiran Karnik said on Sunday that the IT industry in India was underdeveloped and it needs to take up innovative works now made possible by technology.

"Today technology has made a big change. I know someone who is controlling a chemical plant in Singapore by sitting right there in Mumbai. It doesn't matters if the plant is 100 miles or 5,000 miles away," Karnik said adding "This is the kind of technology penetration that makes anything possible."

"But, IT market in India is underdeveloped and underpenetrated, we should undertake new kind of works that the technology has made it possible today, such as rural BPOs," he said while answering to a query from IIM-A student at the valedictory session of Confluence-2008.

When asked about impact of US President Elect Barrack Obama's stance on key issues pertaining to Information & Technology (IT) and health care vis-a-vis its impact on India, Kiran Karnik said, "if India happens to be the best place to do competitive business then they have to do it here."

"It has to be a competitive growth. To be competitve they need to find a best place, and if India happens to be the
right place then they have to do it here," he added.

"One of the major agenda on Barrack Obama's list is to cut high cost of healthcare services," Karnik said.

"US government wants to cut cost in this segment so all the back office work such as insurance, billing, maintaining patient records could be outsourced, UK has already done this," he added.