TN gets new ICT policy

CHENNAI, INDIA: M Karunanidhi, Chief Minister (CM) of Tamil Nadu recently released Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Policy 2008-09 for the state. The CM handed over the first copy of the ICT policy to A Raja, Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology (CII).

The policy aims at making Tamil Nadu the IT hub of South Asia by 2011 by creating a knowledge driven ecosystem leveraging entrepreneurship and promoting socially inclusive growth to achieve a 25 percent production share of the Indian ICT industry. At present Tamil Nadu has 11 percent share, at $5.7 billion of the total ICT production of  $51 billion. The new policy comes after a gap of almost six years and aims to create approximately three million jobs directly and indirectly. Vision 2011 predicts the creation of opportunities to employ 0.8 million directly in IT firms and another 2.2 million indirectly. ICT services and ICT manufacturing sectors are expected to employ 0.7 million and 0.1 million people respectively.

The government has drawn a plan to nurture talent in the state by setting up centers of excellence (CoE), finishing schools for economically weaker sections, allowing industry representatives in the syllabus committee, providing soft skills, introducing new methodologies and ensuring that every high, higher secondary school has computer labs with broadband internet connectivity by end of 2011.

The State Government has also planned to boost research and development by setting up IIT’s, encouraging industry-academia collaboration in R&D, offering incentives, scholarships from government and industry to pursue research, setting up labs in the public private partnership mode and setting up research parks. The policy has some thing to encourage the entrepreneurs from the state by establishing incubation center in their institutions and making entrepreneurship as a subject in all colleges across the state.

All the IT-ITeS facilities set up in Chennai and neighboring districts such as Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts with an investment of over Rs 250 crore in a period of three years would be eligible for a structured package of incentives. And the investments for other districts has been fixed to Rs 150 crore for next three years and all those locations would be considered as tier-2 and 3 locations for the purpose of availing certain special incentives.

As a major relief for the new IT-ITeS units, the State Government has announced capital subsidy and electricity tax exemption for a specific period depending on the investments. For the units that are worth between Rs 5 crore and Rs 50 crore and that has 100+ direct workers, there would be a capital subsidy of Rs 30 lakhs and electricity tax exemption for two years. Those companies, which are worth between Rs 50 crores and Rs 100 crores and that has 200+ direct workers, there is a capital subsidy of Rs 60 lakhs and electricity tax exemption for three years. And the companies between Rs 100 crore and Rs 200 crores, with 300+ direct employees are entitled for a capital subsidy of Rs 100 lakh and electricity tax exemption for four years. Finally those companies worth more than Rs 200 crores with 400+ employees will enjoy a capital subsidy of Rs 1.5 crore and electricity tax exemption for five years.

Also the policy has provided exemptions in stamp duty and registration fee of up to 50 percent during the time of purchase of a land or building for IT-ITeS parks initiated by the State Government. The government has ensured that Tamil Nadu will be positioned to attract investments in areas of Disaster Recovery and Business Process Continuity. As a part of the initiative, government will ensure that sufficient bandwidth and power is made available to IT-ITeS companies at alternative locations throughout Tamil Nadu. It has also amended the Motor Vehicles Act to enable the IT companies to make use of hired privately owned omnibuses to transport their employees between their residences and work place.

In a bid to improve the Government’s operations across state, the policy has given a special focus to e-governance initiatives. As per which the State Government of Tamil Nadu will set up the infrastructure needed for e-governance such as State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and the State Data Center. The government will also formulate a comprehensive data security policy. It has also proposed to set up 5,440 common Service Centers on a public private partnership mode in rural areas and similar service centers in urban areas.