The Hindu Business Line : Kerala plan for `industries resource locator'

THE Industries Department of Kerala has formulated a proposal to create an "industries resource locator" system under the Directorate of Industries and Commerce.

The objective of the proposed system is to establish a Web-based utility that will act as a reliable single-point information dissemination centre. All the basic information regarding industrialisation, infrastructure, incentives and opportunities will be hosted at the site, which will serve as a dynamic and interactive system.

According to officials in the department, the main feature of the system is that it will speed up the process of retrieving information on the infrastructure and resource availability in the State for the benefit of a potential entrepreneur or a policy decision-maker.

For this purpose, all District Industries Centres (DICs) in the State will be linked to the Directorate of Industries and Commerce, which will act as the hub.

The exercise is part of re-engineering the Government delivery mechanism to act as a facilitator and promotional agency in the context of liberalisation. Consequently, the Directorate of Industries and Commerce and the DICs, as a whole, will be re-oriented as a service provider in areas such as project identification, marketing, quality certification, inventory management, personnel management, finance and strategic management.

The department has suggested setting aside a specific amount to take up the implementation of the "resource locator" project, which will involve data acquisition and collation, hardware/software application designing and training and updating of information.

The officials explained that being an information technology-based model, the system would seek to utilise the most appropriate hardware configuration so as to take care of the future needs. This will be done in consultation with expert agencies like Keltron or the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing.

For data acquisition and collation, the methodology to be followed will be in the form of an exhaustive questionnaire supplied from the DICs and information will be gathered at panchayat/block level. The details will be collated uniformly and computerised to create a digital database.

The near real-time data can be accessed from anywhere in the world. Apart from benefiting potential entrepreneurs, businessmen, traders and exporters, the system would help the department adapt to the emerging concept of e-governance, the officials said.

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