The advice was more startling as it came from the man largely responsible for placing Bengaluru on the global IT map. Chairman emeritus of Infosys, N. R. Narayana Murthy, took the audience at the Global Investors’ Meet – 2012 by surprise when he suggested it was time the state looked beyond Information Technology. Delivering the keynote address at the GIM’s formal inaguration on Thursday, Mr Murthy emphasised the state needed to move on and develop its tier II and III cities for overall development instead of banking on the IT sector alone to propel it forward.
“Industrial growth cannot depend on just one segment. Karnataka needs to walk a long way to emerge as an industrial hub and to achieve this the state government has to work harder in terms of providing infrastructure and educational institutions in the tier II and III cities,” he said. It was time to encourage manufacturing and exporting as they create jobs. “Between 2008-10 eight million jobs were created as the country gave immense priority to the export sector,” he noted.
While lauding efforts in organising GIM–2012, Mr Murthy observed the bigger challenge was to provide employment to youth. “Though this event is aimed at bringing prosperity, it can only be sustained through creation of employment opportunities,” he said, suggesting both the state and Union governments needed to adopt a multi-pronged strategy for creating 100 million jobs in the next decade,” he said.