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India should increase awards quota for ICT leaders

I was a little surprised when a leading columnist in a financial daily came down scathingly on why the number of people getting various Padma awards is increasing, while the credentials of many of them is questionable. While I agree that many of the winners may not be the most deserving, I have no doubt about the fact that the number of people doing great work in India and making the nation proud, is increasing.

Let me at the very outset state that besides various other sectors including bio-technology, the field of IT, communications, and BPO will produce people who will be worthy of Padma awards. They will be industry captains, who would be recognized the world over for their great strategies to capture global markets; HR chiefs, who from the learnings of rapidly growing BPO and software services industry, will come out with revolutionary HR management practices; software engineers, who will make their mark with path breaking processes and patents; and bureaucrats who will be e-Champions of e-Governance projects that will have far reaching impact. They will be people who would have the courage and vision to venture successfully into domains that were known to be impossible before.

 Hats off to S Ramadorai whose vision helped India become a global IT power, and to Nandan Nilekani whose leadership made Infosys a role model for IT and non-IT companies world over. I would even go to the extent of saying that the Government of India took rather long to recognize the contributions of these people. They have got recognition for themselves, their company, as well as for their country like very few business leaders before them. My contention is that we will have more Ramadorais and Nilekanis in the years to come.

 While I believe that the number of Indians who will be deserving the Padam award will only go up in the days to come, what I propose is that there should not be fixed categories where awards have to be given if there are not highly deserving people. This way, more deserving people in emerging sectors will get a chance to be honored. I know that there are two other people in IT, three people in communications, and two in the BPO space, who should have been considered for some Padam award or the other. 

 I would even advocate that emerging and high growth sectors should perhaps be given a higher quota. I do not need to educate people on how much IT, BPO, Biotech, and Communications sectors are contributing to employment generation, economy, and global image. And these are some of the crucial factors that will determine India's status at the time of global competitiveness. The Government must go all out to promote- nationally to begin with-a sector that is contributing so much, and will continue to grow in terms of its strategic value in the years to come.

 Another observation I have about these prestigious Padam awards is that they are loosing their excitement. Most people are really not bothered as to who is getting this award. It is actually because most of the winners are people who are not being closely watched by the Indian public. But I strongly believe that ICT leaders are today being much more closely watched and tracked because of a variety of reasons. If we start recognizing them for their contribution, the awards will become more glamorous. And much more awaited.

 For the last several years, the Government of India is almost reluctantly giving awards to only one or two ICT stalwarts. It is important that more young people should be encouraged-people who still have a long way to go. We must not forget that the average age of people in the ICT space is much less than all other sectors.  The Government must break out of its old style of thinking and think of some new and more exciting award categories.

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