Centre to set up IT regions: Official

Mysore, Aug 20 (UNI) The Union Government proposed to establish Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) to give boost to Information Technology and Information Technology-enabled services in the States, Union Depaertment of Information Technology Joint Secretary N Ravi Shanker said today.

Speaking at the inauguration of the Ford Foundation-funded International School of Information Management at the University of Mysore here, he said the ITIRs were expected to give further boost to knowledge-based industries in Tier-II cities in the country.

The initiative and the proposal to establish such regions should come from the State Governments who should also fulfill requirements pertaining to connectivity, including provision of air, road and rail links besides providing water and power.

Besides Bangalore and Hyderbad, the new locations could be either be greenfield or brownfield sites.

The Centre, which had taken initiatives to support knowledge management system, would soon unveil a proposal of National Knowledge Commission to network 10,000 knowledge institutions in the country with one GB connectivity.

''The draft policy is in process and will begin with 100 knowledge institutions like the IITS, Indian Institute of Science and all CSIR Laboratories which will networked. This will be upscaled to link 10,000 institutions in the country within three years,'' he added.

Earlier, speaking after inaugurating the School, Infosys Chief Mentor N R Nayanamurthy said in the globalized world the only way to maintain whatever little progress achieved was through innovation which could be fostred only by a powerful knowledge management system.

Any good institution-corporate or R&D laboratory had to depend on a good knowledge management system for which sound grounding in information management system was required, he added.

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