Chandigarh needs a mega vision

CHANDIGARH, INDIA: “For Chandigarh to reach electronically ahead, it has to think beyond Chandigarh itself and widen its thinking with a mega vision,” said Shivraj V Patil, Governor of Punjab and Administrator of UT, Chandigarh, who inaugurated the two day mega ICT event, e-Revolution 2010 in Chandigarh today.

The event has been jointly hosted by the Chandigarh Administration along with the Government of Punjab and STPI in association with TiE and NASSCOM.

Welcoming the gathering, Sanjay Kumar, Secretary, IT and Finance, Chandigarh said that development of IT and ITES in the region is the core agenda and both the local administrations are gearing up to promote the growth of ICT industry in the region.

As a major step towards making the region future ready the local administration is taking various e-governance initiatives and plan to automate all government departments to bring in transparency and efficiency, thus enabling free information flow and pacing up processes.

Identifying one of the key challenges in the region to be developing and retaining local manpower, Kumar informed that the UT administration has launched the ‘Chandigarh training on soft skill program’.

Acknowledging that India at large has made significant development in producing and exporting high-end software the Governor further said, “The same, however, is not the case with our hardware production. R&D will play a major role in this regard and the Government is willing to contribute financially towards the otherwise impossible expense to be met by private sector companies.”

He further acknowledged that land acquisition to build up industries in Chandigarh is a major concern. However, the Government has already formulated advantageous policies for farmers who agree to give their lands for the purpose, ‘Therefore land is not the real problem,’ said Governor Patil.

Omkar Rai, Director General, STPI shared the success story of STPI with the audience and how the Mohali center has played a vital role towards the growth of IT & ITES exports in the region.

Dr. S. S. Channy, Principal Secretary, Industries & Commerce, Govt of Punjab, focused on the fact that Chandigarh, being a pollution-free and planned city, can provide very good ambiance for the otherwise demanding IT industry. 

“Discussions and brain storming leads to generation of Ideas,” stated Pradip Mehra, Adviser to the Administrator. And exactly that is something what we expect to witness a lot in the coming sessions of the event.