Advantage Pune

Springtime of Creativity

It’s no gimmick to present a feature on a filmmaker as the lead story of a special section in an information technology publication. The decision is in fact a salute to the artistic inclination of L C Singh, one of the doyens of the IT industry in India. This President and CEO of Pune headquartered Nihilent Technologies took as many as eight weeks off his busy working life to fulfill his long cherished tryst with the celluloid.

LC—as he is fondly referred to—had always thought there is something valuable about ‘Indian-ness’ that helps us to see beyond the confines of monetary gains and worldly prosperity to find ‘inner peace’ which all of us keenly wish to reach. His film ‘Banaras: A Mystic Love Story’ is thus based on the flow of events that shapes up on the banks of the holy Ganga (what greater symbol of Indian-ness?) It depicts a physics scholar whose love with a musician takes her to Banaras where she meets a mystique and realises the divine-ness of everything that the Indian culture honours. For almost a year, Singh kept using his evenings to write the script, using hi-tech gadgets such as notebook computer or tablet PC. Singh’s venture as a film producer must be looked at from another angle. While for years he had carried at the back of mind the germ of ‘inner peace’ it was Pune that gave him the physical peace so important to those with a creative mind. Here is a city that has always sustained creativity in the midst of industry.

In the last decade or so, Pune has strongly consolidated its position as a major centre for the IT industry. This is not in terms of the number of IT businesses that are run out of Pune alone, but also in terms of revenues and export earnings generated by them. Statistics reveal that IT exports from Pune have been rising at a high rate. From a mere Rs 230 crore in 1997-98, Pune’s IT exports have increased to Rs 4,200 crore in 2003-04. In the current decade alone, exports rose 33.33 percent in 2001-02, 55 percent in 2002-03 and 42 percent in 2003-04. Nasscom’s growth projection for the Indian IT industry for 2004-05 is 26 to 28 percent, whereas STPI has placed Pune’s growth expectations at 40 percent.

Advantage Pune is an effort to showcase the prowess of the city’s select niche players in the IT arena. These are firms that do high-end development work for big international players and make a difference to the way these players do business. So when a telecom operator is offering efficient service to millions of customers, the software developed by engineers is working for an IT firm in India. In addition, this software developer (the promoters are in favour of calling themselves a technology company rather than an IT one) writes programmes that help businesses understand whether their investments in plant and machinery are giving them the desired returns, and if not, why.

Remarkably, all this has been achieved without disturbing the social and cultural fabric nurtured over decades. Material progress has in no way made a dent in the smooth and ‘cool’ lifestyle Pune was always known for. The proposed international airport, the fast-nearing-completion International Convention Centre and the proposed international exhibition park promise to make Pune a truly global city. It is of course important that the country’s political masters are serious about Pune’s speedy development, but IT sector certainly has the capacity to best exploit Advantage Pune and take the phrase beyond the rhetoric.