SK Sandhu, Finance and IT secretary, Chandigarh administration, in a conversation with Bhaskar Hazarika from CyberMedia News shared the government plans to boost the IT initiatives in the State.

The UT administration is planning to set up 70 new e-Sampark centers in the territory in the next six months, says Sandhu. Excerpts:

What are the e-governance initiatives in Chandigarh?

Chandigarh administration has been taking active interest to roll out e-governance initiatives in the State. Under the e-governance plan we have rolled out nine e-Sampark centers. Project e-Sampark is a multi-service single window system, which connects various public dealing departments with electronic centers. This project has been awarded the Golden Icon Award for e-governance by the Government of India. In this center, we are offering 20 services including payment of taxes, utility bills, passport application, disbursement of old-age pension and other utility services.

E-Jan Sampark is another project to disseminate useful information services to citizens. Every center supports multi-service delivery, which includes non-transactional services. We are planning to set up 70 such kiosks on public-private partnership. It will be built on the reverse model of built operate and transfer (BOT). We will be setting up these centers in the next six months.

We have also set up 17 e-Gram Sampark centers in 17 villages of Union Territory of Chandigarh. It is combination of e-Sampark and e-Jan Sampark, targeting the rural population. Through these centers, the citizens will be able to use 15 G2C and 3 B2C services.

Could you share some figures in terms of revenues generated from these centers? Are you planning to increase the number of centers?

In the last three years of establishment of these centers, the administration has transacted more than Rs 700 crore. In 2006, we earned revenues of Rs 350 crore, which is expected to increase every year. We are transacting more than Rs 1.25 lakh per month from these centers.

We have recorded selling 1,000 stamp papers on a daily basis. We are planning to set up 70 e-Jan Sampark centers in the next six months.

What are the major IT initiatives of the administration aimed at attracting major IT companies? What are the incentives that the government would be offering to these companies?

Under the Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park (RGCTP) project, the government has been taking special initiative to attract IT companies to the UT. This initiative has been divided in to three phases. In the first phase, 123 acres of land has been allotted to two companies to set up centers in the site. Infosys has set up its center here and around 2,000 people are being employed. DLF Info city has also built up a center which houses a number of IT companies such as IBM Daksh, Net Solutions, eSys and SAP solutions.

Under the second phase, 250 acres of land has been allotted of which 125 acres has been allotted to IT and ITeS companies. Wipro is the anchor company with Tech Mahindra, Bharti Airtel and eSys as the co-anchors. Development of the third phase of the park on 270 acres has already begun. We have identified the land and are in the final stages of acquisition. It would be partly under SEZ and partly under STPI. Once the project is completed, it will bring in an investment of more than $600 million apart from employing 25,000 IT professionals.

The IT policy of Chandigarh was declared on April 2000 to promote the application of Information Technology for the benefit of the society, by implementing e-governance and by promoting investment in the field of technology. The IT-enabled service policy was declared in January 2003, to promote the ITeS and the BPO sector, which is witnessing a huge growth. Chandigarh is also a part of the growth and would contribute to the growth of this industry.

Is there any plan to offer special professional courses to turn students into professionals for the emerging IT hub of the country?

The Society for Promotion of Information Technology in Chandigarh (SPIC) has taken the initiative to start C-TOSS (Chandigarh Training on Soft Skills) programme to develop skilled professionals for the ITeS and BPO sector. We have signed a MoU with Dell, Wipro and some other companies in this regard. This is a special programme to tune students to industry standards. This course is being designed in co-operation with IT and HRD companies. The training would be carried out by training agencies at the college premises.

Nasscom has now tied-up with SPIC for conducting its National Level Nasscom Assessment of Competence Test (NAC) for students undergoing C-TOSS training. The first test for NAC is scheduled to be held this month.

Can you throw some light on the Chandigarh Cyber Security and Research center?

The state-of-the-art Entrepreneurs Development Center is coming up on a 1.5 acre plot at a cost of Rs 16 crore. It will have plug and play facilities for upcoming entrepreneurs. This center will include the Regional Cyber Security Research center. This center is being set-up in collaboration with Nasscom and the Punjab engineering College. The center has been in operational from March 2007.

With the growth of the Internet literacy, there are a lot of challenges being faced by the administration in tackling crimes. However, the research center will look in to it to provide safe and secure data access to the people of the region. The administration has invested around Rs 1 crore in the research center.

What is the administration's take on the SEZ policy?

We are setting up a single window committee for each SEZ in order to facilitate permission and processing of applications. This facility would be available to the developers of the SEZs. The single window committee would be headed by the Development Commissioner of the SEZ authority and include representatives of all key government departments.

SEZs and units within the SEZs and also the developers of these SEZs will be excepted from sales tax, VAT, property tax, purchase tax, stamp tax and electricity duty.

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