Should India move towards a
system where politicians become businessmen and start treating the management of
the government as handling a large company? From the experiments conducted so
far, it would seem that if India has to reach the ranks of the developing
countries, this model should be followed.
This concept has been
propounded very successfully by N Chandrababu Naidu, CM, Andhra Pradesh. And so
successful has he been in this endeavor that he is now being referred as the CEO
of Andhra Inc. In fact, sometime back one of the leading financial daily
presented him with the Best Indian CEO award. Across the board, all politicians
irrespective of their political affiliations should follow in Naidu's footsteps
if they really have India's interests at heart.
Perhaps the biggest feather
in Naidu's cap has been the fact that he was able to impress Bill Gates enough
to make sure that Microsoft established its Indian development center in
Hyderabad–its first outside the US. Along with that, a host of other biggies
like IBM, Oracle etc have also established a big presence in the state by
becoming an integral part of the IIIT which itself is another notable
achievement for Naidu.
The latest achievement for
him has been his ability to convince the top corporate honchos of India to set
up the proposed Indian Business School in Hyderabad. In the process, by behaving
more as a CEO, Naidu scored over the claims of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and
Maharashtra, who were also in the race. In fact, not only did Naidu give a whole
lot of concessions and cut down the bureaucratic red tape, he virtually rolled
down the red carpet to welcome luminaries like Anil Ambani, Rahul Bajaj, Deepak
Parekh and Rajat Gupta.
And now Naidu is adding
another feather cap in his cap by organizing orbIT 2001–an IT expo–in
Hyderabad. Unlike other such shows, this expo will focus on the business
opportunities through meaningful business exchanges between the IT industry and
the IT user community, as well as tie-ups for foreign state-of-the-art
technological and investment collaborations.
And to promote the event, a
series of roadshows are being organized across the country. The roadshows have
presentations and interactive sessions by AP Government delegation headed by
Rajat Kumar, Joint Secretary.
Now which other Indian Chief
Minister has managed to give so much focus to IT. The answer is nobody.
Everybody acts and behaves like a politician, which is perfectly okay as it is
their profession. But at the same time, it would do wonders for their image, if
all of them start emulating Naidu not only in words but also in deed.