Northeast India's largest IT hub opens in Tripura
Northeast’s sixth and largest hub for information technology has been inaugurated in Agartala. The hub has been set up at a cost of Rs 50 crore to boost employment and e-governance besides export of software technology. The hub is expected to create more employment opportunities for the youths and extend the e-governance to cover all the people of the region. This would facilitate famous IT companies to set off their business and services and boost export of software technology. This will be the largest hub in the region.
Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), under the union Ministry of Electronic and Information Technology, helped the state government in setting up of the hub by sharing the technological knowledge. In the new IT hub, ready-to-use incubation space will be made available that can be used by the start-up companies, aspiring entrepreneurs, Indian and multi-national companies as per their needs and requirements.
Last year, Tripura got an award for its performance in IT and e-governance from the central government. The state has already extended many e-governance based facilities and services up to the level of gram panchayats. The e-district scheme in the state helps people in getting various certificates and documents from their concerned panchayats or blocks. It is estimated that the state’s 80 percent of the state’s 37 lakh population have begun to use mobile phones leading to an IT boom.
Significance
Tripura has a vast pool of skilled English speaking IT manpower. Thousands of these professionals are currently working in cities like Bengaluru or Hyderabad. Opening up of IT hub offers a new opportunity for not only Tripura but the whole of northeast India. With India’s recent agreement with Bangladesh over the purchase of surplus bandwidth and its close proximity to Bangladesh, Tripura can act as a “backyard” of the fledgling IT industry of Bangladesh. It can make use of Bangladesh’s plans to double its IT exports by 2017.
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Month: Current Affairs - April, 2017