Vajpayee markets Indian IT for 2008 Beijing Olympics

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Thursday donned the robe of a salesman of India's booming IT sector by proposing to assist Beijing to host the 2008 Summer Olympics.

"The Olympic games in Beijing in 2008 could provide a good opportunity for Indian and Chinese IT firms to work together," Vajpayee said while addressing a mega seminar organised by National Association of Software and Service Companies in Shanghai, the communist giant's industrial and commercial hub.

Vajpayee pointed out that India's experience has shown that in mega events like hosting of Olympics, "a substantial proportion" of the contracts awarded to the IT sector are actually sub-contracted to Indian firms.

"Indian and Chinese firms could instead join up to provide state-of-the-art solutions at cost-effective prices, thereby also cutting out the middlemen," Vajpayee said on the penultimate day of his six-day official visit to China, the first by an Indian Prime Minister in a decade.

"We could even think of a joint institutional mechanism between the two governments which could see whether modalities could be worked out for this," he said, indicating New Delhi's desire to participate in the 2008 Beijing Olympic process.

He also said that India has a national e-governance programme seeking to link grassroot public services with those at macro level. "Here again, India and China can share their experiences in optimising the e-governance systems," he said.