IT firms not taking back seat on infrastructure route

IT firms not taking back seat on infrastructure route
The Times of India

When you see security guards trained in traffic management, with a white uniform and distinctive redstripe across the chest and waving reflector batons on Hosur Road at peak hour traffic, you can be sure that the IT industry has something to do with it. n Or see traffic signals bearing logos of companies, you can be sure that companies are working behind the government scene to fund the signals.

n Or when you see some of the footpaths getting a facelift, you can be sure that somewhere some IT company is pedestrian friendly.

Focus on what’s happening now and get things going is the current code for IT firms, according to Som Mittal, who apart from heading the HP’s global delivery centre, also represents the industry’s one-point agenda to the government.

“The infrastructure problem is so huge that we have realised that we need to work with the government rather than demand that they should do something to improve it,” he told The Times of India.

When the government agencies come together under one roof to thrash out infrastructure issues, things do get going, albeit slowly. The Infrastructure Review Committee meets twice a month.

“I am not taking the side of the government and saying that they are going all out to improve the infrastructure. But you have to understand that there are too many complexities involved. At least getting all the chiefs at one go and making them talk to each other so that at least some issues get sorted out is a big step,” Mittal says.

Surprisingly, at the review meeting held on December 23, 2005, there was a three-page tabular printout of the projects that were undertaken — the date of commencement, of completion and present status. And these were not about mega projects but stretches like 3.2 km or 5 km of roads.

At least to see organised sheets of paper where small stretches of roads are being improved is a sign, hopefully, of better things to come.

UPDATE ON ROADS
n On the Bangalore-Mysore Road, the industry is setting up two trauma care centres as well as mobilising five ambulances. Lata Jagannathan of the TTK Blood Bank is spearheading this effort which would prove to be a lifesaver for accident victims. n BMTC is also working on sorties by Volvo buses to industrial estates. n BMTC’s pilot project to be launched within a couple of months will have buses which carry 300 people in JP Nagar to reduce the traffic congestion.