Centre has in-principle approved SIP for hi-tech industries: Maran

Mumbai, Feb 7 (UNI) Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Thiru Dayanidhi Maran today said the Centre has in principle approved the Special Incentive Package (SIP) as prepared by the Department of Information Technology for semiconductor manufacturing and other hi-tech industries.

Inaugurating the three-day NASSCOM Leadership Forum summit here today, Mr Maran said the parameters of the package will be announced shortly.

Expressing happiness over the growth of IT-BPO industry in the country, Mr Maran said, ''Because of a galloping 30 per cent plus growth of the industry over the past five years, and the significant ramp up of activity in the Indian domestic environment, an air of euphoria surrounds the market''. The Minister hoped that the electronics hardware market alone would grow to USD 363 billion by 2015, from USD 28 billion in 2005.

Attributing the success in the IT-BPO sector to the industry's growing focus and orientation towards innovation, he said, ''Leadership in the knowledge society will rest largely on innovative products, services, processes and business models.'' Appreciating the innovative efforts by IT companies in the country, he said, ''From general purpose operating system for mission critical applications to VSLI, engineering design, RDBMS, digital security systems, and language-independent softwares, the Indian IT companies have come a long way''.

He urged the industry and academia to join hands with the government to develop and market innovative products that will provide leverage in the USD 240 billion software products market which is set to boom in the days to come.

The Minister informed that work is already underway towards making bandwith available to every Indian. He also informed that the fibre infrastructure has been prepared up to the block level, last mile wireless technologies are being deployed and the VSAT solutions for the unconnected have been implemented in the form of EDUSAT and other satellite services.

UNI