Stating that the Government is trying its best to put the State at the forefront of IT revolution, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday said IT exports from the State was more than `1,600 crore during 2011-12, registering a growth of 17 per cent, compared to the previous year.
Inaugurating the one-day e-Odisha summit here, the Chief Minister said the IT sector is at the top of the State Government’s agenda and four of the major IT players __ Infosys, TCS, Wipro and Mahindra Satyam __ have established their development centres in Bhubaneswar.
The Software Technology Park of India (STPI) in Bhubaneswar is one of the oldest in the country, he said, adding that the STPIs in Berhampur and Rourkela are also playing a vital role for employment in the IT sector.
Stating that several e-governance initiatives undertaken by the Government have proved to be very effective, Naveen said e-registration, e-treasury, e-commercial tax, e-abhijog, e-district, e-despatch and e-municipality have been very successful. Two such e-governance initiatives of Odisha have won this year’s prestigious national e-governance awards, he added.
The Chief Minister said the State Government is committed to creating an open environment to attract investment from IT industries and foreign investors.
“In order to promote such investments, IT Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are being established at Infocity and Infovalley in Bhubaneswar,” he said.
To accommodate future development in IT sector, particularly in Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM), the Government is also developing one IT Investment Region (ITIR) in the southern part of Bhubaneswar city, he said and added that the Government has taken several steps to build Bhubaneswar as No.1 IT destination among the Tier-II cities in the country.
The summit, jointly organised by the Department of IT, Odisha Computer Application Centre (OCAC) and Elets Technomedia comprised parallel thematic track conferences on IT in governance, IT in education and IT in health.
Among others, IT Minister Raghunath Mohanty, Director General of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIAI) R S Sharma and Secretary, IT Department, Madhusudan Padhi also spoke at the summit.