IT czar speaks dialect of man of the masses

Bangalore, Aug 18: Championing the cause of the rural poor, Infosys Chairman and Chief Mentor N R Narayana Murthy called upon the powers that be to harness the Information Technology potential to reduce poverty in the country.

IT could help improve agricultural productivity and bring the benefits of health, education and better governance through telemedicine, electronic education and e-governance, to the people of rural areas, thereby improving their standard of living, he told UNI here.

''But the more important task is to create a climate where we can get to industrialisation on a big scale in rural areas to enhance agricultural productivity like China has done,'' Mr Murthy said, adding that 26 per cent of the GDP was contributed by agriculture and 65 per cent of the people depended on agriculture.

''Our agricultural per capita is something like 40 per cent of the national GDP. It is very low. As against the national per capita income of US Dollars 800, the per capita of people depending on agriculture was US Dollars 320. It is very difficult to live,'' he said.

Mr Murthy said drafting agricultural labourers for manufacturing sector involving low technology was the only solution to increase their earning capacity. The consequent disposable income at their command could help grow the economy.

On the responsibility of politicians and those in power to keep up assurances, he said ''the country has some leaders who walk the talk and some who don't. The challenge before us is to make sure that a large percentage of our leaders walk the day and the best way in a democracy is elections. People will only vote for those who walk the talk.''

UNI