Political stability and great tourism make Orissa a preferred IT destination

Orissa has been in the news for inves­tments in the re­cent past. Also, IT
major Info­sys' only campus in eastern India is in Bhubaneswar. The state is
also trying to get active on the e-governance front. Surendra Nath Tripathi,
Commissioner-cum-Secretary - IT, Orissa spoke to Bhaswati Chakravorty on his
government's plan.

Orissa is one of the least talked about states as far as e-governance is
con­cerned. Can you share with us the roadmap that has been chalked out?

The Orissa Government has engaged the National Institute for Smart Gover­nance
(NISG), Hyderabad, to prepare an e-governance road map for the state last year.
Apart from that Wipro has also been engaged, which is expected to be ready in
the next 30-45 days. We have iden­tified e-governance as a priority area.

There are six to seven major projects that are currently on. The state
treasury is being automated. The automation of land registration is under
project Bhulekh. Out of the 1,311 tehsils, automation has already happened in
159 tehsils. In addition we have brought the Panchayat Raj Department under
e-gover­nance. Under the Gramsat initiative, all 314 blocks in the state are
being linked to the district and state headquarters.

Project e-Shishu is one of our most ambitious e-gov­ernance initiatives,
which aims at tracking each child, whether in school or out of school, in the
state of Orissa, by demographic attributes, educational status, financial status
and many such minute details.

OCAC, the nodal agency for IT and ITeS of Orissa has signed an MoU with
Microsoft for developing the MS Office Software in Oriya. The work is likely to
be completed within the current calendar year.

We are also setting up common service centers (CSCs) in all the panchayats of
the state. The CSCs are part of the Mission Mode project under the national
e-governance plan. These centers will be single-point shops for delivery of all
government services and will encourage other value added services such as
agriculture-based infor­mation/transactions, ban­king, insurance,
micro-credits, telemedicine, e-learning and entertain­ment. The scheme would be
implemented through a three-tier structure. At the grassroots there will be a
village-level entrepreneur akin to a franchisee. At the middle-level there will
be a service center agency (SCA) and at the apex level Orissa Computer
Application Center (OCAC) - the state level agency - will facili­tate
implementation of the scheme.

What initiatives is the government taking to attract investments to the
state?

We see huge potential. In 2004 the IT and ITeS units have been declared as
public utility services under the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act
1947. Under this, they are exempt from the clearance and routine inspections of
the controlling and regulatory authorities of the state government; they are
also exempt from payment of sales tax for a five-year period from their date of
first billing. IT parks and STPIs shall be free from power cuts and IT and ITeS
units would be exempt from payment of electricity duty as per provisions of the
Industrial Policy of the State,  

We have also devised special concessions to be offered to mega IT projects
involving cost of Rs 10 crore and providing employment opportunities to more
than 500 persons within a period of two years.

Which are the key IT players to have invested in Orissa so far? How much
investment do you see coming in over the next couple of years?

Most of the big players are already here: Infosys, Satyam, TCS. In fact, TCS
is setting up a larger facility at Bhubaneswar. Wipro bou­ght land in January
this year. We signed an MoU with Mindtree in March this year. We are expecting
invest­ments from Flextro­nix, Hexaware, Genpact, Syntel, among others by
2008.

Both Posco and Tata Steel are setting up manufacturing plants in the state.
Balco, Nalco and IOC are also making investments. In fact, total investments in
the core sector have been to the tune of Rs 200,000 crore. We believe this would
boost investment in tertiary sectors like IT.

Secondly, the IT parks. DLF is setting up the Info Park. Another 200 acres of
land has been identified for the setting up of InfoCity II around 15km from Khan­dagiri
Junction. We are also coming up with STPIs at Rourkela and Berhampur. The
Berhampur STPI center will be operational from January 2007. We expect these
initiatives to further boost investments in Orissa.