The Hindu Business Line : AP plans IT policy with thrust on HR, infrastructure

THE Andhra Pradesh Government has announced plans to unveil a new IT policy that would help it garner about 30 per cent of the country's overall exports by 2008-09 by laying special emphasis on infrastructure and human resource capital development.

Speaking to newspersons on Monday, the Principal Secretary Information Technology, Dr J.C. Mohanty, and Advisor, IT, Dr C.S. Rao, said that the State Government was in the process of finalising a new IT policy in association with three think-tanks created by the Government in partnership with the private sector to be announced next month.

On the IT review meeting they had with the Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajashekara Reddy, Dr Mohanty said that the State, which accounts for about nine per cent in IT software exports and 13 per cent of ITES exports in the country, is aiming to account for 30 per cent of total exports by 2008.

It was felt that this would be possible by addressing the issues of human resources and developing the necessary infrastructure through private sector participation.

It is projected that the State would require about 30 million sq ft of office space and about six lakh trained manpower. Of the 90,000 people required every year, about 60,000 would be needed to meet the requirements of the ITES sector. "To address this, we plan to train people, rework college curricula and involve private participation," they said.

A meeting of the Vice-Chancellors of various Universities and heads of engineering colleges would be convened soon to rework the syllabus to meet current-day industry requirements.

If need be, adequate soft skills would be developed for them to make these students industry-relevant.

With regard to e-governance thrust, the State Government plans to adopt a three-pronged strategy of better delivery of citizen services through kiosks, taking up a major broadband network and strengthening the Government-to-citizen delivery system.

Good response to broadbands

HYDERABAD: The State IT Department has invited tenders for the Rs 700-crore broadband project and has received good response from private sector players.

Without naming the companies, Dr Mohanty said that about 15 companies have evinced interest and picked up RFP (request for proposal) papers from the Government.

This broadband project would be developed through the PPP (public private partnership) model. As opposed to a meagre 2 MB per second, the Statewide connectivity project would have a gigantic capacity of 10 GB per second.

"For instance, a 256 kbps connectivity costs about Rs 15,000 per month and if the broadband project gets implemented, which is likely by December 2005, we could possibly offer this at Rs 100-150 per month.

While opening up a whole range of possibilities including telemedicine, we could serve as a cable TV operator across the State," he added.

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