Can we make ‘IT’ happen in India?

This Saturday night, I was casually browsing and searching about Ashank Desai, one of the co-founders of the IT giant Mastek. I was particularly inspired about Ashank Desai because of the fact that he belonged to Goa. As I was digging into the internet, I stumbled upon a video about one of the largest project executed by Mastek, which became a milestone in the company’s road to success. The project was titled- “London Congestion Charging”. Puzzled by the name, I continued watching the video, and got inspired by the idea.





The project dealt with a solution for the heavy traffic congestion in the city of London. The traffic was at an alarming rate of 22 – 55 vehicles per second at every traffic signal, which gave rise to other problems like pollution, reduction of time reliability for car users and reduction of efficiency of distribution of goods and services in London. How could an IT company like Mastek get involved and possibly solve traffic congestion problem?? I wondered. But what I saw was amazing..!

Here is how Mastek provided an IT solution to London’s growing traffic congestion-

-         A concept of ‘daily licences’ was introduced. Every vehicle commuting in the city had to buy a licence for the day. Mastek’s licence management system made it possible for the commuters to buy this license through various channels of payments like SMS, Call Centres, Automated IVRs or other 2500 identified retail pay-points across the city.

 -      Video cameras were installed on every nook and corner of various zones of the city. These cameras were strategically planted so as to capture the licence numbers of each and every vehicle entering a particular zone. The cameras sent the licence number details to a centralized system, which would recognize and identify each vehicle entering the zone and make sure that the vehicle had paid for the day.

The result, as announced by authorities in London, was that the traffic inflow was down by 20%, and the congestion was down by 30%. With this, the public bus services could be increased and traffic delays were noted to be considerably less.

The solution was Amazing! It indeed made me proud to know that an Indian IT company, Mastek helped London, one of the biggest and busiest cities in the world, to solve their traffic congestion problem!

But hang on… Isn’t this problem familiar? Don’t we have such problems in our own cities like Mumbai or Delhi? One may argue that traffic inflow in Indian cities is not as big as London. But aren’t there numerous other serious and grave problems in our country which pose a big challenge and are left unsolved?

Just look at the big picture with a different eyepiece. India has built up a booming IT industry with giants such as Infosys, Wipro, TCS and the likes. What these companies have basically been doing is, putting a lot of effort, resource and intelligence into bettering the lives of the west. We have offered thousands of solutions, computerized hundreds of businesses and provided IT innovations which have added quality in their lives. Now, in 2012, we say that the market is down or there is saturation. In other words, the west is already sitting pretty on the cosy cushions woven by the Indian IT service industry. Could it be a possibility that there are fewer problems and hence lesser demand for our services?

How about IT companies of India taking domestic problems? Garbage disposal, Parking problem, Corruption, food adulteration… we all have these problems here. And on the other hand, we have competent IT companies which can come with concrete IT solutions for problems such as these. A little initiative from the Government and a contribution from our IT resources can make India a much better country to live in…! If Mastek could solve London’s traffic congestion problem, our huge pool of talent within various IT companies could very well solve these long-standing problems and help create a big social impact.

How about leveraging technology to make a difference? Is it just a matter of realizing it, and utilizing it in the right direction? IT could make a huge difference in the near future. Hang on...