BHUBANESWAR: Union Minister for Electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad predicted a digital boom in India and said the country is becoming a hub of electronics manufacturing in the world. Inaugurating the state-of-the-art Electronics and IT Enclave of Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), Bhubaneswar here on Saturday, Prasad said from mobile manufacturing to automobile and medical electronics to solar power, everything is now being manufactured in the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had wished to create an India of 3 ITs - India’s Talents plus Information Technology can be India Tomorrow.“Digital India means empowering ordinary people with the power of technology to reform, transform and develop India. It will bridge the digital divide between the haves and have-nots and bring digital inclusion based on technology which is low cost and development oriented,” he said.
The STPI ELITE that was inaugurated is the biggest in Eastern India. It will promote innovation, entrepreneurship and incubation besides digitally empowering people and creating more employment in Odisha.The Government has been promoting electronic manufacturing in a big way. He said from just two mobile manufacturing units in the country till 2014, the country now has 120 mobile factories in India, employing nearly five lakh people in the last four years.
“An electronic manufacturing cluster has been approved for Odisha. While about Rs18 crore has been paid in the first phase, rest is in the process. I would love to see Odisha also becoming a manufacturing centre of electronic gadgets where all factories work together,” Prasad said. Describing the digital profile of the country, he highlighted the success story of JAM - Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and Mobile boom.
“India which has a population of 130 crore is home to 121.5 crore mobile phones, including nearly 45 crore smartphones. In the last four years of Narendra Modi Government, the number of mobile phones added in the country is equal to the population of France and Italy. We have 122 crore Aadhaar and nearly 55 crore internet connections,” he informed.
With an aim to create huge digital infrastructure, Prasad said, about 150,000 panchayats are being linked with optical fibre, of which already one lakh panchayats have been linked.
“While 358 km of optical fibre was laid in three years under the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) launched in 2011, we have laid 2.72 lakh km in the last four years, which shows the speed and scale of development,” he said.
The Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme is a huge success as nearly `four lakh crore subsidy has been disbursed among the poor people of the country and about `90,000 crore has been saved which was being pocketed by middlemen and fictitious claimers, he observed.
Secondary Data Centre of NDR opens at STPI
Bhubaneswar: Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said data mining and repository are highly needed for oil and hydrocarbon exploration as well as production. Inaugurating the Secondary Data Centre of National Data Repository at the STPI Enclave, Pradhan said data repository help is highly required even during oil block auctioning. Data repository will also help research in hydrocarbon sector, he added. “Incentives of `3.5 crore has been provided to start-ups in the innovation and incubation fields. Digital India initiative is meant to bring ease of leaving in daily life. Odisha has a pool of highly talented students and youths who can be the world leaders in technological innovations,” he said. In Odisha, 13 in-principle approval have been given to companies to start BPOs in Bhubaneswar, Jaleswar, Cuttack and Balasore. Some have started operating and others are in the process of being commissioned, he said. Pradhan said more BPO centres will come up in Angul, Jajpur, Sambalpur and Jeypore (Koraput) which have been approved by the Union IT Ministry. So far, 2,400 seats in BPOs have been allotted to Odisha, he added.