While the Prime Minister asked these babus to suggest a policy framework in which India could develop into an IT superpower, those in charge decided that it was more important to secure their own future first -- after all, what's to be gained from a 30-fold increase in the industry over the decade, if you can't even control it?

And yes, make no mistake about it, though you had a host of well-respected professionals in the Task Force, it was controlled, and its agenda driven, by these babus each step of the way.

Which is why there were sharp dissensions in the Task Force -- a couple of dissent notes sent to the Task Force chief Jaswant Singh pointed out that of the 108 recommendations made, only 45 had actually been debated by themembers.

So what did these babus, such as N. Seshagiri of the National Informatics Centre (NIC), do to protect their turf, to ensure that they had an important role in this field which, the world over, has grown only because no one regulated its direction, or set standard parameters for its development?

They inserted, to cite one example, a clause which stated that the NIC would interact with IT suppliers to help provide these services to the government at a lower cost. While that sounds good, what it means is that NIC was to become a kind of certifying agency which would lay down prices/terms and even equipment details which were to be purchased by government agencies, schools and colleges across the country. That, incidentally, is the role that the DGTD used to play in the pre-reforms era, laying down specifications for various machinery in different industry!

Seshagiri, of course, denies any such motive and says that all government departments would still be free to buy what they wanted. Thosewell-versed in the ways of the bureaucracy, however, point out that once NIC starts certifying what hardware/software is the best, there's no way that any government department can buy anything without referring it for clearance.

And if these weren't bad enough, the Task Force's sub-group on hardware has now come up with some recommendations aimed simply at protecting local manufacturers at the expense of the consumer. It has recommended that import duties on components be brought down to zero immediately for actual users (domestic manufacturers of computers), while that on the finished computers be reduced to zero only after five years.

In other words, give local producers like HCL an added advantage over, say, an IBM or a Compaq who import their computers in complete form. Never mind that this will actually lower the quality of computers available in the country since it is established that India has no special advantage in hardware supply.

What's worse is that the Task Force has taken a verymechanical approach to the issue. The Task Force, for example, identifies the real problem as that of massive shortages in trained manpower. So, specialised IT universities will be set up, regional IT-based education centres will be set up in IT-backward areas such as UP, Rajasthan, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and the Northeast.

Similarly, hi-tech habitats are to be set up in areas like Delhi, Pune and Bhubaneswar -- eventually, 50 such habitats will be set up in the country's rural hinterland. Sounds good on paper. But, once again, the effort seems to be the same old one, to promote `balanced' regional development, rather than to encourage a few centres of excellence.

Compare this approach of developing infrastructure at a rough cost of $50 billion over a decade (that's what the Task Force recommendations add up to), with the approach followed by, say, countries like Israel. Israel runs a relatively successful `incubator' programme which costs $30 million a year and controls 26 `incubators' which areessentially centres which provide support systems for technical people, either through small funding, helping them identify suitable partners, and providing guidance from industry leaders.

Companies like IBM and Microsoft are on the board of these incubators -- this way they help start-ups and even gain when they bloom. The government also set aside a small corpus of $150 million to share some part of the risk with venture capital firms who came to Israel to provide support to fledgling IT firms. All these, and other such schemes, are run through the office of the chief scientific officer who, incidentally, is not a bureaucrat, but a person who himself/herself has an impressive hi-tech entrepreneurial background, and understands exactly what small start-up companies require by way of assistance in funding, technology and other guidance. The fact that most of Israeli IT firms, at the cutting edge of technology, have benefitted from these schemes, is an eloquent testimony to their effectiveness.

All this,of course, seems alien to the babus who have been entrusted with the task of developing India's IT capabilities. In the event, they have adopted the method they understand best -- sink in large sums of money, never mind where, and wait for the results.

Never mind that it is precisely this approach which made the country spend huge sums of money in setting up various ITIs, technology parks, industry centres, software parks, and what have you. None has yielded any tangible benefit to the country, precisely because they were badly planned and poorly executed. Sadly the same mindset continues even today, as we aim for the twenty-first century.