Pilot project on TAGUP report soon: Pranab

Kolkata, Jul 29: Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today (Jul 29) said the government will soon take up a pilot project on the basis of recommendations of the Technology Advisory Group for Unique Projects (TAGUP) on various IT-intensive projects.

"My ministry wants to create an IT platform to benefit the people. The task force, headed by Nandan Nilekani, was formed for the purpose. It has given a presentation. A pilot project will be taken up shortly on the basis of the presentation," Mukherjee said while inaugurating the first management training programme of MDI, Murshidabad here.

The minister said the IT platform would facilitate among other things, management of subsidies, transfer of funds for various schemes and disbursement of wages.

While stating that the objective of growth could not be achieved without financial inclusion, Mukherjee said that the Centre has told banks to provide banking facilities to habitations-- with a population of over 2,000-- by March 2012.

"I am happy to note that the Indian banking system has identified 73,000 such habitations for providing banking facilities using appropriate technologies," he said.

Congratulating the banks in India for surviving the economic recession when their counterparts in other countries collapsed, Pranab Mukherjee said, "our banks are often criticised for their conservative approach, but the balance in the system and the tendency to avoid risks paid off well."

Besides, he said the government wanted to move the economy away from high dependency on agriculture. "We surely want to move away from the scenario of the agriculture sector, contributing 40 per cent to the GDP."

PTI