Govt working on policy to provide thrust to IT sector: R B Udayakumar

TIRUCHY: Tamil Nadu's export in the IT and ITES sector touched Rs 1.39 lakh crore during 2018-2019 as against Rs 1.27 lakh crores the previous year, said State Minister for Revenue and Disaster Management, R.B. Udayakumar.

The minister who also holds the Information Technology portfolio, announced this while inaugurating 'CII Trich-E-Connect 2019', jointly organised by ELCOT and CII in Tiruchy, on Thursday. He also informed that the state attracted Rs 11,974 crore investment in the IT sector during the global investors meet in January this year.

The minister also said that 7.37 lakh persons got employment in the IT sector during 2018-19 as against 7.01 lakh in the year 2017-18.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Santhosh Babu, Principal Secretary, IT Department, Government of Tamil Nadu, said the government was working to evolving an electronic hardware manufacturing policy in order to give further thrust to the IT sector. He also pointed out that it proposes to lay optical fiber cables for a distance of 55,000 kms across Tamil Nadu to provide IT-enabled connectivity to 12,524 village panchayats, 528 town panchayats, 120 municipalities, and 15 corporations.

To start with, IT service centres will be established in all village panchayats of the state to provide common property resources for each and every household. He said that the Union government earmarked Rs 1,815 crore for establishing a Bharat net, while Tamil Nadu allocated Rs 500 crore for establishing Tamil Net.

In his address, ELCOT managing director, M. Vijayakumar, explained the salient future of the IT parks located at Chennai, Tiruchy, Coimbatore, Madurai, and Tirunelveli.

Among others, Tiruchy Collector S. Sivarasu, J. Leo Ananth, convenor, ICT panel, and others spoke.