The Hindu : IBM offers to support e-governance

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Feb 01, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka-Bangalore

IBM offers to support e-governance

By Our Special Correspondent

Bangalore Jan. 31. The Chief Minister, S.M.Krishna's participation in the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos in Switzerland has yielded about half a dozen proposals from foreign companies.

Mr. Krishna, who was away from the country from January 21, returned to the City this morning, and was briefing the Press about his visit.

Besides the investment proposals, IBM has come forward to support the e-governance initiatives of the State Government. Christopher G.Caine, Vice-President (Government Programmes) of IBM, offered to make available "on demand computing capability" to the State Government without major capital investment on the part of the latter.

Mr. Krishna told the session on "Globalisation, poverty and inequality" held as part of the meeting, that doubts would arise in the minds of the people of developing countries if globalisation and liberalisation failed to reduce poverty in the developed countries themselves. Holding a "Karnataka Road Show" for the participants, the Chief Minister said removal of poverty, improvement of infrastructure, and provision of basic education and health facilities were priority areas for the State. He shared the dais with the Union Finance Minister and leader of the Indian delegation, Jashwant Singh, and the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Chandrababu Naidu.

The Chief Minister invited Microsoft to set up a development centre in Bangalore and support the e-governance project of the Government at his meeting with Craig Mundie, Senior Vice-President of the company based at Redmond (U.S.).

The State invited the Swiss processed food giant, Nestle, to make investments in the State. Mr. Krishna met the Executive Vice-President of Nestle S.A. for Asia and Africa, Michael W.Garrett, with a request to act as the anchor company for at least one of the six food processing parks coming up in the State.

He had to explain to the President and CEO of Volvo Truck Corporation of Sweden, Jorma Halonen, about the steps being taken by the State and the Centre for the development of the road system. The Volvo chief said the growth of their truck manufacturing project in India would depend on improvements in road infrastructure. Volvo is manufacturing buses in Karnataka.

At his meeting with the President of the Japan External Trade Organisation, Hiroshi Tsukamoto, Mr. Krishna invited investments by small and medium sized Japanese companies in the State especially in the automobile and manufacturing sectors. Major Japanese corporations such as Toyota, Denso, Komatsum, Sanyo, Sony, and Toshiba had a presence in the State.

George Sores of the Fund named after himself operating from Washington explained his plan to invest in a big way in the biotechnology sector in Karnataka. Bangalore could be the focal area or location of the project. He promised to send a team to study the options and opportunities in Karnataka.

Skoda Exports of the Czech Republic as also the Czech Export Bank officials expressed their interest in building the 500 MW Vijayanagar Thermal Power Plant taken up by the Karnataka Power Corporation at Tornagallu in Bellary District. Jaroslav Hubacek of Skoda Exports and Miroslava Hrncirova of the Bank said they had built large power plants in China and other countries. The latter assured that her bank would support the initiatives of Skoda in power generation in Karnataka.

Glaxo Smith Kline PLC of the U.K. showed interest in investment in the pharmaceutical sector in the State, especially in the manufacture of vaccines. Jean Pierre Garnier, CEO of the company, said they were interested in setting up a data centre on bioinformatics and clinical trials and drug evaluation for the Glaxo Group in Karnataka. However, he sought the support of the State Government in protecting the intellectual property rights of the company.

Sanjay Kumar, Chairman and CEO of Computer Associates, U.S. told the Chief Minister of their proposal to set up a product development centre in Bangalore. Mr. Krishna assured assistance to the project.

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