FOR a decade now, the buzzword is that Information Technology (IT) equals development. And rightly so. Every kind of work today is internet related. In the rest of the world e-governance is a real thing Look at the visa application process! You are talking to a computer, not to a human being. If you click a wrong button you are prompted to redo or reset your template. It has become so easy to pay bills online. The age of long queues is nearly over. Even passport applications and renewals are now done online. Plane and train tickets are purchased online. While this can be mind-boggling for the older generation, it is part of the younger generation’s survival kit. Elsewhere people are working from home and words such as flexi-timings are part of the new lexicon, because what you can’t finish at the workplace can be completed from home. All this is made possible because of the internet revolution. So much so, the word, “server down” has come to mean a big “let down” when you want to pay your bills or wish to transact banking business.
Today it is impossible to imagine life without an internet-linked computer. Kids as young as ten years or less handle I-pads more adeptly than most adults. It is a wired world and friends no longer meet at cafes but over Facebook. Everything is shared – personal, political and what have you. Banks are wired to a core banking server and teller machines in foreign shores can dispense money to an ATM card from another country. Life has become incredibly easier in some ways. But the IT sector also has some rigorous demands. Electricity is absolutely critical to powering the IT world. What makes IT attractive is its clean and environment friendly nature. It leaves little or no carbon footprints. This is one industry that Meghalaya should readily embrace. Yet the much vaunted IT parks are yet to come up. Things always seem to take more than the required time to be set up in Meghalaya. One factor that has prevented companies from setting up shop here is poor connectivity. It takes all of four hours to commute between Shillong and Guwahati. No one can spare so much time today! After 40 years of statehood, Meghalaya is yet to have its own airport. This physical distance with the rest of India and the world must be bridged and regular power supply has to be guaranteed. These are the basic pillars that will drive the IT industry.