The Hindu Business Line : Orissa hopes to garner Rs 1,000 cr from software exports by 2006-07

BUOYED by the commitment of Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services to set up operations in Bhubaneswar and the Centre's green signal for the third Software Technology Park of India (STPI) unit in Berhampur, Orissa is confident of generating a revenue of Rs 1,000 crore from software exports by the end of fiscal 2006-07.

In 2003-04, around 80 software companies in the State accounted for an export revenue of Rs 319 crore. IT majors such as Satyam and Infosys already have operations in the State, said Mr Surya Narayan Patro, Orissa's Minister of Information Technology, during an interface with the media on Tuesday.

He announced that Orissa, in association with the Department of Information Technology and the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances of the Centre, was convening the eighth national conference on e-governance in Bhubaneswar from February 3 to 5.

Mr Patro said Orissa had identified IT and e-governance as priority areas and the State would leverage upon and draw from the national conference to provide impetus for its new initiative on the e-governance front.

The national conference will provide a forum for exchange of ideas on e-governance and related issues. Experts with domain knowledge from industries, the Government and academia are expected to participate in the conference this year. The theme of the meet is `Capacity Building for e-Governance'.

Currently, Orissa has two STPIs in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela. The plan to set up a third STPI in Berhampur was part of the State Government's fresh endeavour to create IT infrastructure throughout the State for all-round economic development through IT exports. The State Government also proposes to facilitate the setting up of STPIs in other places such as Sambalpur and Balasore.

According to Mr Patro, Orissa is keen to showcase the State as an attractive destination for IT and IT enabled services companies. State Government officials visited Bangalore recently and met the top executives of over 20 major IT companies with a view to invite them to set up operations in Orissa.

Besides having the required human resources for the software sector, Orissa is also focused on providing the necessary human resources for the ITES sector. Apart from tying up with Mafoi of Chennai, Orissa Computer Application Centre has joined hands with Wordcraft for offering a training course in business process outsourcing here.

An arrangement has also been entered into with Merit Trac of Bangalore for skills assessment of trained hands for the BPO sector.

Initiatives have been taken to provide English language training for the manpower required in the BPO sector, in association with the US Embassy in Delhi and the US Consulate in Kolkata.

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