UT focussing on human resource industry: Shahjahan

Puducherry, Mar 16 (UNI) The Union Territory of Puducherry is not focussing on large industries due to constraints in getting lands and instead going in for human resource industry, Minister for Education and IT M O H F Shajahan said today.

Inaugurating a conference on 'Globalisation impact on Indian Business' organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here, Mr Shajahan said the administration proposes to set up a 'Land Bank' here.

Stating that the administration's desire was to make Puducherry as a 'knowledge centre,' the minister said the territorial administration would set up a special education zone for which land would be acquired by the government.

Permission would be accorded to private parties to set up quality educational institutions with government subsidy which would help human resource industry. The special education zone would be named as 'Rajiv Gandhi knowledge village,'he added.

The administration would soon set up a university in the state sector, which would have tie-up with foreign universities, he added.

Mr Shahjahaan said IT and Tourism were two other focused sectors in Puducherry, and added that the government was planning to set up an Infrastructure Development Corporation in which private parties could also invest.

As there were large number of French speaking people here, French companies could set up BPOs and prepare the youths for taking up the challenge, he said adding the administration propose to set up a language workshop here.

Announcing that the government was contemplating to integrate IT with tourism, he said the IT policy of the Union Territory would be announced in the next ten to 15 days.

The administration was seeking 'expression of interest' from consultants to make Puducherry viable for investments, he said adding the government would fix one consultant, who would be marketing Puducherry not only in the country, but also overseas.

Speaking on the occasion, CII Chairman (southern region) M Lakshminarayanan said globalisation had come to stay in the present context of development and economic growth.

While several multinational companies were investing in the country, Indian companies were setting up their units abrad, he said and called for expansion of activities in the rural areas also.

UNI