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In her address after the inauguration of the 5th edition of 'Connect 2005', the chief minister highlighted Tamil Nadu's commendable achievements in the IT sector.
'Connect 2005' is the largest IT event in the state organized by the Tamil Nadu state government and the Confederation of Indian Industry (southern region) in Chennai.
The highlight of this program is that every village in Tamil Nadu would be provided with the necessary hardware and content for information dissemination. It would be done initially on compact discs and the system would be available on the Tamil Nadu State Wide Area Network, which is under implementation. This system would also be made available to self-help groups to provide a wide range of citizen-centric services.
The chief minister highlighted the rise in software exports from Rs 3115 crores (Rs 31.15 billion) in 2000-2001 to Rs 10,703 crores (Rs 10.703 billion) in 2004-2005, a rise of around 244 per cent! The number of software units in the state has grown by 1266 in 2004-2005, adding a new software company every three days!
While exports from application software accounted for 61 per cent of the software exports, system software contributed 12 per cent, ITES other than BPO had a share of 10 per cent, BPO had a share of 5 per cent, product development 3 per cent and other sectors accounted for 9 per cent. The chief minister also informed that nine out of ten top IT companies have their offices in Chennai.
It not only the software sector that is booming in Tamil Nadu, the hardware sectors is also buzzing with activity. Telecom giant Nokia's arrival at Chennai and a host of other manufacturers signal the beginning of manufacturing being reinvented at Chennai.
The Tamil Nadu government also sent a delegation to woo companies in Taiwan to invest in the hardware sector. To make Tamil Nadu more competitive, the Chief Minister said the government would build a new international airport. Another initiative is the construction of 5.2 million sq. feet of space for the IT industry in Chennai. More than 40 IT parks are coming up in the public as well as the private sector.
In terms of infrastructure, the chief minister said her government would complete the 25 km six lane IT Expressway from Adyar to Sirusseri IT Park in record time. The 'Chennai Forever' initiative has already changed the profile of Chennai as a city on the move. The knowledge industry township on the IT expressway was also launched at 'Connect 2005' with the Chief Minister giving away documents of title to Wipro, Satyam and HCL Technologies.
The ITeS market globally is expected to grow to US$ 142 billion by 2008. The Nasscom-McKinsey survey predicts export revenues of US$ 21-24 billion by 2008 for India and Tamil Nadu is aspiring to achieve 20 per cent share of that market with the new ITeS policy.
The Chief minister expects the initiatives started by the policy to go a long way to improved the quality of services. She has also spelt out steps to add value to the existing educational curriculum. These include a gamut of activities from language and voice training, to training in specialised verticals in the ITES sphere. She also said that Tamil Nadu is the only state that has taken a unique initiative of developing a specialised ITES curriculum.
The government has signed a MoU with Microsoft Corporation India to set up a state of the art IT academy to provide comprehensive training to teachers in Information Technology.
She said that the project is expected to benefit 20,000 teachers and reach over 10 lakh students in the state during the 5-year period of its implementation.
The TN government is also exploring the possibilities of introducing a low cost PC that would lead to a quantum jump in the penetration of computers all over the state, in partnership with IT companies.