NIC Chairman wants rural areas to operate as back offices for the countrys urban centres

Updated on: Thursday, April 04, 2013

Rural areas in India can operate as back offices for the country's urban centres, like Bangalore has emerged as a crucial centre for the US, National Innovation Council Chairman Sam Pitroda said.

If Bangalore can become the back office of the US, then there is no reason as to why rural India cannot become the back office of urban India, he said at CII's AGM meeting here.

Pitroda also called for addressing the issues of the poor, and the people at the 'bottom of the pyramid'.

He said: "Best brains of the country are busy in solving the problems of the poor... We have moral responsibility to solve problem of the bottom of the pyramid... India is working with 19th century mindset and 20th century processes to address the needs of 21st century."

Pitroda, who is also the Adviser to Prime Minister on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovation, said the government is working on several innovation initiatives through National Innovation Council.

Initiative like Industry innovation cluster, currently running in 8 industry clusters across the country, is going to expand to 100 clusters in next 1 year, he added.

Pitroda stressed on the need for democratisation of information.

National Knowledge Network connecting all the academic and research institution has been operational and by 2014, high speed connectivity through rural broadband for Indian villages will be operational, he added.

India needs to think "out-of-the-box" and "have the guts to challenge the foundation", he said.

ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan said at the event that Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is ranked 6th in space competitiveness Index, a global ranking of nations on space technology.

"Presently, ISRO is ranked 6th in space competitiveness Index, which is a great achievement of India's high technology driven innovation," Radhakrishnan added.

Innovation has played a great role in the journey of ISRO from its inception 42 years back, he added.

He emphasised that private sectors have played a major role in their technology developments and many ISRO spin-off technologies are commercialised by industry for non-space applications.

NIC Chairman wants rural areas to operate as back offices for the countrys urban centres

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