The government on Friday enhanced the Budget allocation for the Department of Information Technology to Rs 1,680 crore (Rs 16.80 billion) for 2008-09, a rise of 12 per cent over the current fiscal.The government had set aside a sum of Rs 1,500 crore (Rs 15 billion) in 2007-08.
In the Budget speech, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the government's forward-looking policy was driving the growth of information technology and information technology-enabled services.
The government has also proposed to provide Rs 75 crore (Rs 750 million) for common service centres, Rs 450 crore (Rs 4.5 billion) for State Wide Area Networks (SWAN) and Rs 275 crore for the State Data Centres, he said.
The Finance Minister further said that a scheme for establishing 100,000 broadband internet-enabled Common Service Centres in rural areas and another scheme for setting up State Wide Area Networks (SWAN) with Central assistance are under implementation. A new scheme for State Data Centres has also been proposed.
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