Jaya clicks on IT policy to realize her dream to catapult state to numero uno position

Chennai:

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Wednesday said that her government plans to bring out a new information technology and IT enabled services policy to catapult the state to ‘numero uno’ position.

Adressing a gathering of Industrialists during the 11^th edition of CONNECT organized by Confederation of Indian Industry here on Wednesday, the chief minister, who was also the first to give a thrust to state’s IT policy by inaugurating the first edition of Connect 2011, quoting American writer Orison Sweet Marden said, “I have a vision or a dream to make the state numero uno in terms of all round development and dreams come true when you act to turn them into realities and to achieve this my government proposes to bring out a new IT and ITES policy.”

Calling for partners who can see growth in both old and the new economy, she said IT has powered the transformation of the State into a modern economy, clearly making it India’s eastern gateway to the world, not just South Asia.

The software exports from Software Technology Parks

of India(STPI) in the State have touched Rs 42,100

crore. “If we include exports from IT-SEZ units, it is

estimated to be above Rs 50,000 crore”, she said, adding it

would be her government’s endeavour to sustain and stabilize this environment of optimism.

She said the state has carved a pride of place in information technology by emerging out of the popular perception of being a coffee loving conservative city to transform itself into the Sanjose of india with state-of-the IT parks.

She also said within the state’s software exports, the focus is primarily on high-end of the value addition spectrum. “About 49 per cent of the state’s IT exports constitute system and application software while business process outsourcing constitutes only 12 per cent which is a clear reflection of the climb-up in value chain and maturity achieved by the IT industry,” she added.

Wooing investors, Jayalalithaa said the state has emerged as destination of choice for investors and remained as one of the top three destinations in attracting Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in the country.

She said the state has a rich capital of human resource endowments with the state recording a annual turnout of 1.92 lakh engineering graduates and a equal number of trained polytechnic students. “Tamil Nadu is the most ‘technically powerful knowledge state’ in the country with Anna University becoming the largest technical university comprising of 500 engineering colleges and produces about 25 per cent of nation’s engineers and nearly 10 per cent of the world’s engineering graduates,” she added.

Interestingly, the keenness of chief minister in promoting the state as numero uno could be seen when she hailed the speech of S Ramadorai, advisor to Prime Minister of India on Skill Development, who highlighted the potential of the state to become a global leader in many sectors. “He has laid out a roadmap to help achieve these goals. I request him to send in his suggestions so that we can implement it,” she added.