IT&E dept looks to ensure coordination between Fintech hub & Silicon Valley

Kolkata: The state Information Technology and Electronics (IT&E) department will be developing a network to ensure that its Fintech hub and the proposed Silicon Valley hub can work in close coordination with each other.

"We have to ensure that both traditional and emerging businesses have a suitable home in Bengal. Our department is working toward this," said IT&E minister Bratya Basu, while addressing a knowledge workshop on Fintech at Biswa Bangla Convention Centre on Friday.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had laid the foundation stone for the Silicon Valley project in New Town last month, where leading companies like Reliance, Amazon, Fujisoft etc. have already evinced interest in investing.

Taking the cue from the minister, state Additional Chief Secretary, IT&E department, Debashis Sen said that the Fintech hub, with a number of financial institutions, is looking to use the best of technology, particularly for safe and secure transactions.

"Cutting edge technology will be available at the Silicon Valley hub. So, a strong network will be developed between these two hubs," a senior official of the IT department said.

Bratya Basu released a user manual on use cases of Blockchain based crowd sourcing solutions that have been developed by his department, at the workshop.

"Our government is working on taking a lead in fintech and blockchain, as these technologies will soon emerge as a major job creator in the days to come," he said.

According to Basu, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee believes that IT not only ensures citizen centric service but at the same time, has the potential for generating a lot of jobs for the skilled and talented youths in the state.

Blockchain technology developed by the state IT&E department has been made available for the Vivek Tirtha project being carried out by Ramakrishna Mission.

"Blockchain technology is particularly safe for crowd funding, as the database is shared across lakhs of computers at the same time. So, hacking into a single computer does not affect the data and hence, there cannot be any misappropriation," said Debashis Sen.