Karnataka eyes small towns for IT

Karnataka expects tier-II and tier-III towns to contribute about 10 per cent of its total IT exports by the next fiscal and is launching a slew of initiatives to achieve this.

It will employ the hub and spoke model to spread its IT industry to towns like Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli, Dharwad, Belgaum, Gulbarga, Davangere, Shimoga and Hassan.

"There are a lot of university clusters in cities other than Bangalore with a ready availability of qualified manpower. Attrition rates are lower in these cities and we will provide all possible support from our end to ensure smooth operations," said M K Shankaralinge Gowda, secretary, department of information technology, biotechnology, science and technology.

After the success of the STPI in Mysore and Mangalore, the state is setting up two more STPIs, one each at Belgaum and Dharwad, so that there will be readymade infrastructure facilities for IT companies to move into.

The state, in association with leading BPO companies in the state, has also launched a programme called B-SAT which will test the BPO skills of graduates in the tier-II and tier-III towns.

"We will be testing the skills of 300,000 graduates and we expect about 100,000 to be employed immediately. There will also be training in voice and non-voice skills for those who require it," Gowda added. The training will be provided free of charge with the candidate paying Rs 6,000 when he is employed.

Karnataka also plans to focus on tier-II and tier-III towns in the forthcoming Bangalore IT.com between November 1 and November 5, 2004. The theme for this year's IT.com is 'Shape the future with ICMT' for information technology, communication technology, media animation and telecom.

Bangalore will have its first hardware technology park, which will come up near the proposed international airport in an area of 1,000 acres with a proposed investment of Rs 100 to 200 crore (Rs 1-2 billion). The state will also come out with an IT hardware policy, which is due to be announced at Bangalore IT.com to increase its focus on hardware exports.