NASSCOM and CNBC-TV18 IT User Awards 2008 were held on 26th November in Mumbai. NASSCOM, the apex body of the Indian IT industry and CNBC-TV18, India's No.1 Business Channel announced the winners of the first and the most distinguished honours for excellence in IT. The ´IT User Awards', India's first of its kind initiative, are conferred on the organisations that have made use of IT to create and deliver value.

Mr. Jairam Ramesh, MoS, Department of Commerce, MoS Ministry of Power along with Mr. Peter Ryan, Global VP, Sun Microsystems felicitated the winners at an exciting award ceremony which also saw the attendance by luminaries that included Som Mittal, F.C Kohli, Capt. Gpoinath, Jagdish Khattar, Motilal Oswal and Manu Talwar among others.

While speaking at the ceremony, Mr. Som Mittal said that while majority of IT industry's revenue still comes from the international market, domestic IT market is growing at a breakneck speed of 9%. He noted that from a small industry, Indian IT has grown to a 36 billion dollar industry. He added that while many of the sectors are now making use of IT to bring about a change in their operations, sectors like healthcare and retail should use more if IT to bring about efficiency

Mr. Jairam Ramesh while talking on the contribution of Mr. F.C.Kohli said that he (Mr. Kohli) has set the foundation of Indian IT sector. He said that he is amazed at the amount of ideas he is still churning out. He further added that he has not seen such kind of enthusiasm anywhere else. Mr. Ramesh emphasised on the need for IT companies to focus on domestic IT market. He visualised that a few years from now Indian IT should include 1/3rd exports and 2/3rd domestic business. He hoped that the IT companies will soon change their mindset about going to the US and give domestic market its due share. He added that in last few years the government has come up with a slew of programmes for IT implementation. He quoted the examples of computerisation of railways and Tax Information Network to emphasize the role played by IT. He said that government will soon be undertaking a Rs. 80,000 crore project for adopting IT in power distribution. Mr. Ramesh emphasised the need for restructuring of IT sector in which 5 top companies hold 50% business and the rest 50% is held by other 1200 companies.

Mr. Peter Ryan said that IT is the backbone of communication and in the country that sells 10 million mobile phones per month, it assumes a significant role. While underlining the importance of R&D he said that Sun Microsystems sill invests 14 of their revenues in research. He said further that he sees India as a land of unparalleled opportunity.

Mr. Khattar, while speaking on the occasion said that Maruti has always focussed on IT application. He said that sectors like Health and Education need more IT usage. He too appealed to the Indian IT companies not to lose sight of the domestic market while eyeing international markets.

Capt. Gopinath pointed out that it is not enough to have a dream or vision it should be backed by venture. He said that one needs to change and become an agent of that change. He accredited a large part of Air Deccan to the implementation of IT in ticket booking. He said that he faced a stiff opposition by the travel agents due to the e-booking system. He was not opposed to the travel agents but he was opposed to the monopoly and cartel, he said. He noted that the toughest problem he faced was due to insufficient percolation of IT. He therefore had to build the IT Systems from scratch. Captain Gopinath shared that with tie-ups with petrol pumps, post offices grocery shops and cybercafés he managed to get an estimated 7000 physical points of sale. He also noted that Air Deccan had become the largest e-commerce website collecting 1.5 million dollars per day. He said that India today represents the aspirations of the world and IT would play an important part in building an equitable society which needs to innovate and not just rely on the government.

Mr. F.C. Kohli whose work has made a tremendous impact on the IT implementation, was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the ceremony. Speaking on the occasion he said that in the initial phases of Indian IT hardware dominated the software business. He noted that while IT has taken off in India the use of computers in India is still low. He said that in China the penetration of PCs and IT is 4-5 times that of India. He said that computerisation of a country needs affordable hardware and software in regional languages.He noted that china's growth after 1990 was largely due to the use of IT and softwares that were available in Mandarin and Cantonese. He added that emphasis has to be given on producing more Micro-electronic engineers. He said that if india can produce 2000-3000 micro-engineers per year we'll become the design lab for the world.

Mr. Kohli was confident that once we have the software in regional languages, India will have a penetration of 25 million computers as opposed to 6 million currently. He said that in 1946 India gave him a scholarship to study abroad. Since then he's carrying a IOU for India.

In addition to these awards, EMRI won a special award for Best Social Project.