Karnataka CM seeks funds for Hardware Park

To hasten the process of setting up a hardware park in Bangalore, Karnataka
CM Dharam Singh urged Union Minister for Communication and IT Dayani-dhi Maran
to allocate funds towards its establishment.

He was talking to the industry, media and awardees at a function to launch
Banga-lore IT.COM 2004 and presen-tation of awards for state IT exports. He
requested the IT Minister, who was present at the event, to support the state's
initiatives to set up earth stations and incubation centers in Hubli and Belgaum.

He also requested Maran to accord Special Economic Zone (SEZ) status to the
hardware park. "We are keen to promote IT and ITES/BPO beyond Bangalore to
secondary cities. For this purpose, we will allocate five acres land and Rs 100
lakh each in cities like Gulbarga and Belgaum," Singh said.

On the forthcoming Banga-loreIT.COM 2004, which would be held in November he
said, " We would like to make this event a people's movement in other
parts of the state."

Addressing the industry, Maran lauded the efforts the STPI in Karnataka,
which had contributed 34 percent of the national exports touching $4.2 billion.
Terming the BPO and IT Enabled services as the second wave of IT, he stressed
that the government was doing the needful to nurture and counter potential
inhibiting factors.

Maran used the occasion to request the IT industry to show some patriotism
while using domain names. "In countries like UK, Singapore and even
Pakistan they use, co.uk, co.sg or co.pk. I humbly request you to display some
patriotism and use co.in for e-mail IDs and website addresses."

Maran and Singh also presented awards for Karna-taka Best IT exporters for
2003-04. Some prominent awardees include Infosys and Wipro, which topped among
Indian companies; IBM and Digital Globalsoft among MNCs; Dell and HTMT in the
BPO segment and ITTIAM and Cepha Imaging in the fastest growing SMEs category.

Maran also said that the Cen-ter would take steps to bring down Internet
access rates in the country. He informed that the Ministry was speaking to
companies including VSNL and MTNL to introduce broadband using ADSL (asymmetric
digital subscriber line) and DSL (digital subscriber line).

He added that the govern-ment is looking at the TRAI recommendations on
broad-band connectivity. On the status of the Convergence bill, Maran said,
"We are talking to different agencies and receiving their reactions. We are
talking with the Information and Broadcasting ministry. A con-vergence
commission will be set up after the bill is passed."

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