Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan on Rajiv Gandhi's role in India’s IT growth

Kris Gopalakrishnan is one of the founders of Infosys.

Kris Gopalakrishnan, one of the seven engineers who founded IT giant Infosys, recalled how former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was instrumental in India’s IT sector development.

In an interview with Moneycontrol, Gopalakrishnan said how Rajiv Gandhi's focus on technology, telecom and the IT sector contributed greatly to the country’s development.

When asked what were the big trigger points and government contribution to the IT industry, Gopalakrishnan, 67, said Rajiv Gandhi’s contribution was key.

“Definitely Rajiv Gandhi, Sam Pitroda setting up CDOT (Centre for Development of Telematics) and starting the telecom revolution was very, very important. That triggered BSNL to set up their data communication links. STP created a competitive data communication link themselves and we would get data communication link one from BSNL, one from STP and they were very competitive,” he said.

“So, Rajiv Gandhi's focus on technology being very important for India's development, especially telecom, I think was very important,” he added.

Read: When Infosys just had a one-room office: Kris Gopalakrishnan's throwback

He also said the government had always supported when needed and provided important benefits.

“The tax breaks definitely helped, because that allowed the industry to invest in building a solid foundation, building education, infrastructure, building large campuses, investing in sales and marketing. All of these things were helped because of the tax incentives the government gave and made our industry very competitive, because we could then list on the exchanges, and show that our industry is more profitable than anybody else in the world,” he said on the several benefits that helped the IT sector.

On what the 1991 economic liberalisation brought to the table, Gopalakrishnan said: “The liberalization in 1991 removed all requirement for licenses. A lot of the foreign exchange controls were removed, that was very important, because it allowed us to travel easily, it allowed us to invest in sales and marketing outside the country. It allowed us to even bring foreign visitors to India, etc. And later on we were ready when the growth triggers happened, which is the Y2k, the telecom revolution, the internet bubble. So, we were able to take full advantage of these.” Former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh was the key architect behind the country’s liberalisation.

Also read: Leaders in IT will continue to be leaders for quite some time: Kris Gopalakrishnan

Infosys, one of India's most-respected IT companies, was founded in 1981 by seven young engineers -- NR Narayana Murthy, Kris Gopalakrishnan, Nandan Nilekani, SD Shibulal, K Dinesh, Ashok Arora and NS Raghavan.