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Maharashtra will unveil a new information technology (IT) policy by February-end with the aim of making Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Digital India’ campaign a reality at the State level.
A taskforce, consisting of IT industry officials and top bureaucrats from various departments, is being constituted for the formulation of the IT/ITeS (IT enabled services) policy document, sources close to the development told BusinessLine . In addition, the task-force will play the role of improving co-ordination between State machineries and the IT industry.
New featuresWhile the broad contours are still in the works, the 2015 Policy is likely to create technology focused business districts, offer 100 per cent waiver on stamp duty charges for office space transactions and ensure total automation of government-to-citizen services, among other things. “We wish to create technology hubs, similar to Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai. We have identified 2-3 locations for this model where land owned by the government will be leased out to IT/ITeS companies for a period of 99 years,” a senior government official said.
Support for IT companies that are interested in setting up shop in tier 2 and tier 3 cities will be an integral part of the new policy. “We wish to adopt best practises from different countries and other States. We are currently studying the new IT/ITeS Policy of Gujarat, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh,” a senior government official said. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has earmarked 2015 as the year of digitisation for Maharashtra. The endeavour is to automate every government-to-citizen service and make it electronically available by December 2014, sources said.
The CMO would be closely involved with the formulation of the State’s ICT game plan. Kaustubh Dhavse, the Officer on Special Duty to the CMO would be responsible for strategy and execution of the State’s vision for technology, along with IT Secretary Rajesh Aggarwal. The new Policy will have imprints of Modi’s ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’ campaigns, while building on the 2009 IT/ITeS Policy. Maharashtra had announced its first IT/ITeS Policy in 1998. Maharashtra is second only to Karnataka in IT exports. According to IT industry body Nasscom, about 90 per cent of the IT-BPO industry in India is concentrated in and around seven cities, including Mumbai and Pune.
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