Hyderabad, August 05: The Chief Minister, Mr K Rosaiah, on Wednesday said that Hyderabad city will continue to be a hub for the Information Technology industry.
The Chief Minister was inaugurating a three-day “eIndia 2010 — a Premier Annual Mega Information and Communications Technology Event and Products Exhibition organized by Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) in association with Department of Information Technology, Union Ministry of Communications, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Urban Development and State Information Technology & Communications Department, at HICC here on Wednesday. The State government is hosting this mega event for second time in Hyderabad.
Stating that the State has the unique distinction of introducing “e-governance” in the country, the Chief Minister said that some 2.5 lakh youths will get direct employment in the next five years and there are chances that another 10 lakh people are expected to get indirect employment during the period. He said that e-India has focus on e-Governance, with the objective of empowering India for the Digital Decade. “e-Governance is the process of using the ICT tools in delivery of services to the citizens. With the availability of enhanced internet bandwidth in every corner of the country, the service delivery “Anywhere – Anytime – Services” is becoming reality. In our country, ICT infrastructure is created through National e-Governance Plan to address the transformational needs of the Government to Citizens (G2C), Government to Business (G2B) and Government to Government (G2G) interfaces.
Stating that his government was committed to build a citizen-centric, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, in a seamless manner, to achieve full potential in promoting sustainable development thereby improving the quality of life, Mr Rosaiah said that Andhra Pradesh was a pioneer in e-governance and making available the services to common man in a transparent, simple and efficient manner. The State is pathfinder in not only innovating the e-Governance services, but also in implementing citizen centric I.T. enabled projects, he added.
The successful e-governance projects of the State are: e-Seva (electronic delivery of citizen services), computerized registration of immovable property documents (CARD); Citizen Friendly Services of Transport Department (CFST); Value Added Tax Information System (VATIS) of Commercial Tax Department and e-procurement (electronic tender process), he added.
“We are leveraging e-Governance in other government programs aimed to benefit the poor for the programs like Rajiv Arogyasri, Indiramma Housing Program, National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and scholarships to students under Social welfare program. Andhra Pradesh has emerged as a State that provides the right climate for the growth of IT business and is now one of the most preferred destinations in the country.
“Our New ICT Policy 2010-2015 is poised to provide congenial investor-friendly environment to IT companies to set up their facilities and operate in hassle free social environment in the State. Further, the ICT Policy 2010-2015, aims to promote tier II and Tier III locations as IT Hubs.
He also pointed out that Andhra Pradesh was the first to introduce distance education through satellite communication. Distance Education through Ku-Band satellite transmissions under the popular name MANA TV are made available to government schools spread across the State. Andhra Pradesh also is the first to give free right to telecom service providers for laying all types of communication cables, for fast growth of telecommunications across the State.
Aarogyasri Community Health Insurance Scheme is a first-of-its-kind innovative e-Governance project being implemented in the State of Andhra Pradesh. It is aimed at taking world class medical services to the door step of those who live below the poverty line and to improve the infrastructure facilities in health care. This scheme is being successfully executed and has resulted in refining the health care delivery in the whole State.
AGRISNET (Agricultural Resources Information Systems NETwork) is being implemented to deliver the agriculture services to the farmers. e-Suvidha project is being implemented in the State in 101 municipalities and 10 municipal corporations for providing G2C (Government to Citizen) and G2B (Government to Business) services for giving an opportunity to citizens for greater participation in decision making and improved interaction with municipal authorities at different levels.
Some 5,000 delegates from several countries are attending the conference.
Mr. Bhopinder Singh, Lt. Governor, Andaman & Nocobar, Mr Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, Minister for Information Technology; Mr Asraf Abdel Wahab, Dy. Minister of Administrative Development, Egypt, Mr R. Chandrashekhar, Secretary to Union Department of Information Technology; Ms K. Ratna Prabha, Principal Secretary, IT & C Department; Mr M.P. Narayanan, president, CSDMS; captains of ICT Industry and others were present.
——-NSS