The BJP on Saturday unveiled an ambitious "IT Vision" document that it vowed to imple ment if voted to power in the next elections "setting the stage for the next IT revolution in the country". NDA prime ministerial candidate L K Advani, who unveiled the document, said with IT in governance, the Government delivery mechanism would be improved dramatically. "Every Indian would get to know where every single rupee spent on him by the Government goes."

The document vowed a "golden IT quadrilateral" that would take IT to villages, "making IT as ubiquitous as electricity"; talked about making the parameters of broadband connectivity at par with that in the western world; and to make IT an integral part of the literacy drive across the country. "This would also help create as many as 1.2 crore IT-enabled jobs in rural India," said Advani. He said "IT would be used to make national security more robust and expand education and health care services, "especially in telemedicine".

The BJP said if voted to power, the poor would be provided with laptops at Rs 10,000 each. Interestingly, it said manufacturers would have to set up plants in India for this "that would boost the hardware industry in the country".

Interspersing his speech with anecdotes like his first use of the Casio digital diary in early 80s, and a visit to the Microsoft office in the late 90s ("where Indians constituted the one-fourth of the workforce"), the BJP leader said: "A BJP led Government will create a new policy climate where we use technology mainly for India's and indeed Bharat's sustainable development.

Advani, who during his tenure as Union Home Minister, had mooted the idea of national identity cards, also felt that IT could be effectively used to make national identity cards for the citizens. The party also promised to increase mobile phone penetration in five years from 40 crore to 100 crore subscribers.

On the occasion, BJP president Rajnath Singh launched its redesigned website. A host of BJP leaders, including Jaswant Singh, Arun Shourie, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley were present on the occasion. Sudheendra Kulkarni and Prodyut Bora helped prepare the Vision document.