The CSC project, deemed as the single-gateway for Government-to-Citizen (G2C) services, aims to bridge the gap between government and citizen and hopes to provide information and communications technology services to the common man.
The range of services offered through these centres is so wide that companies in the service sector such as banks, insurance and e-commerce companies are keen to garner the bid, said State Information Technology Secretary C Chandramouli
In an exclusive interview to Sify.com, Chandramouli said leading corporates such as Reliance, TVS, ICICI Bank and 3i Infotech and a few non-governmental organisations are among the key bidders vying for these centres in Tamil Nadu.
The primary difference between a CSC and a cyber cafe is that the former will be involved in doing Internet transactions for the user with the Central government approval, he said.
The pre-bids for this public-private partnership project will be opened by mid-November and the number and name of bidders, from a minimum of two to a maximum of five, will be finalised by then, he said.
The project is expected to take off within 6-8 months and in a span of one year, these centres would go operational across the state.
For the convenience of implementation, the state has been divided into five zones and each bidder is allowed to bid a maximum of four zones. The idea is to have one CSC in every three villages catering to the common man, Chandramouli said. Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd is the programme management agency for this nation-wide project and the pilot CSC was set in Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu on January 19, 2007.
Highlighting the software scene in the state, the IT secretary said Tamil Nadu has registered a revenue of Rs 22,000 crore from software exports this year, a growth of 48 per cent over last year. Chennai alone will have an additional 60 million square feet of IT space being added in the form of two more IT parks this year. Of the 70 special economic zones that have received government clearances till now, 40 of them are from the infotech sector, he said.
Owing to the growing demand for IT space in the state, the government is keen on promoting six tier II cities such as Coimbatore, Madurai, Tiruchi, Tirunelveli, Salem and Hosur. To address the infrastructure issues in these cities, the state is developing full-fledged townships with schools, hospitals and other community facilities within the park instead of just IT office premises and as a maiden experiment, the Madurai IT park spread across 100 acres of land, is being developed as a township, he added.
On the infrastructure issues in Chennai, however, Chandramouli said owing to the increasing purchasing power of IT employees, the vehicular traffic in and around the IT offices was getting out of hand. “Though the government has unveiled a host of road widening programmes and traffic arrangement, it is necessary for IT companies to encourage their staff to use more public transport, “ he said. The introduction of air-conditioned and luxury transport buses, the metro rail project etc are all moves aimed at impelling people to use public transport more, he added.
Speaking about the information technology enabled services (ITES) sector, the state IT secretary said the scene was a buoyant one. The arrival of phone majors such as Nokia and many automotive companies setting up their bases in Chennai, has led to the growth in ITES front too. With more electronic vehicles with embedded software being rolled out, the ITES business too has gone up, he said.
Asked about the impact on FDI inflows following the replacement of Dayanidhi Maran by A Raja in the Union Telecom and Communications Ministry, Chandramouli said the multi-national companies do not come into any state on the basis of one individual. “These companies do their extensive research and homework before they step in and they will be little concerned about the change of individuals.”
Autor(en)/Author(s): K Sreedevi
Quelle/Source: Sify, 26.10.2007
