Maran appeals to TN govt to set up

Chennai, Jun 12: Union Communications and Information Technology Minister Dayanidhi Maran has requested the Tamil Nadu government to set up an "IT Task Force" to address the problems faced by IT Companies coming into the state.

Speaking after inaugurating Telcordia Research and Development centre here, Mr Maran said he had made the request to Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and hoped that the state government would do so.

"I hope the Tamil Nadu government would announce the IT Task force when it announces a new IT Policy and new Industrial Policy," he said.

Mr Maran said the setting up of the IT Task force would go a long way in addressing the problems faced by the IT companies, which had established their facilities and those which were evincing interest to set up their facilities here.

Referring to the IT scenoria in Bangalore, Mr Maran said "we have to learn a lot of lessons from Bangalore...it is better to learn from others' mistakes... prevention is better than cure." The Union Minister said that the DMK government headed by Mr Karunanidhi was only few weeks old, but had already attracted Motorola and now Telcordia. He was happy that both the initiatives have come from the US.

Two years back, when he assumed office as Minister for Communications and IT, he had tried to promote Tamil Nadu as an alternative to other places for IT companies. He was even blamed for that being a minister from Tamil Nadu, he added.

"Now Tamil Nadu can be proud of being a centre for Telecom and IT and IT enabled services," he said adding Flextronics, Foxconn, Motorola, Nokia and Sony Erickson were some of the giants who had come to the state.

UNI