IT department to hold knowledge sharing workshops at district level

The first such workshop will be held on May 11.

" We are adopting a two-tier approach in IT and Electronics sector. Apart from holding knowledge sharing workshops on emerging technologies like Blockchain,

Artificial Intelligence, Robotics etc at the state level, we will be holding workshops at the district level in collaboration with Nasscom, Webel and local chambers. This will enable people to have an idea of the facilities offered by the state government and the Software Technology

Park of India (STPI) if somebody wants to set up a BPO or other IT start ups," state Additional Chief Secretary

Debashis Sen said on the sidelines of a workshop organised by STPI on India BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS) offered by the union Ministry of Electronics & IT.

The state IT department has already set up 12 IT parks and are coming up with 8 more all with plug and play infrastructure.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is laying a lot of emphasis on setting up IT parks in Tier II and Tier III areas.

In most of the places in the districts, floor space in IT parks are being offered at a very subsidised rate.

"We have to make people aware of these subsidies on offer and this is where knowledge sharing workshops will have a role to play,"

Sen added.

It may be mentioned that the IBPS scheme of the union IT ministry seeks to incentivise establishment of 48,300 seats in respect of BPO/ITES operations across the country of which Bengal has an allocation of 1,700 seats.

The seats in Bengal has received a lukewarm response with only 200 seats getting occupied.

"The scheme does not involve Kolkata Metropolitan Authority (KMA) area that stretches from Diamond Harbour to Naihati and also covers a major part of Howrah and entire Kolkata.

Most of Bengal's activities happen around KMA area and that has been the main reason behind the poor response. Lack of awareness is another reason," Sen said.

He urged the people working in the IT sector to spread the word around in their own possible way through tweets, Facebook and other social media channels.

Under the scheme, the union IT ministry will make 50 percent of expenditure incurred on BPO/ITES operations towards capital expenditure (CAPEX) and/or operational expenditure (OPEX) on admissible items, subject to an upper ceiling of Rs 1 Lakh per seat.