The Hindu : National : Technology Park opened

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 25, 2005

National

National

Technology Park opened

Rajesh Ahuja

Manmohan says it will be key to Chandigarh's transformation

"Chandigarh, and the region around it, has the right human resource base to tap this favourable environment and lead the region to a new dawn"

CHANDIGARH: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday called for a second wave of development in Chandigarh, which should be anchored around rapid industrialisation and growth of the services sector.

Inaugurating the first phase of the Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park, Dr. Singh said that the growth of the knowledge economy, the possibilities of outsourcing being opened up by technological developments and the rapid integration of the Indian economy with the global trading system were throwing up enormous opportunities which were waiting to be tapped.

"Chandigarh, and the region around it, has the right human resource base to tap this favourable environment and lead the region to a new dawn. I am certain that the Chandigarh Technology Park will be the turning point in the economic transformation of the region,'' he said.

He said that it was befitting that this project, spread over an area of 123 acres in the first phase, was named after the late Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, who was a great visionary with a passion for IT and the use of technology for taking India to the forefront.

Dr. Singh said that large-scale employment opportunities for the youth in the services sector and in the IT and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sectors were enabling those with appropriate educational backgrounds to be part of the momentum that was taking India forward towards becoming a prosperous nation. Stating that cities and towns were attracting investment from knowledge companies wanting to tap the skilled manpower base, he said that Chandigarh was poised to join the front ranks of IT cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Gurgaon.

Dell Computers, Quark, Infosys and DLF here in the Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park were ushering in a new era of prosperity and technological innovation in this region. The Technology Park was attracting interest not only from Indian firms such as Infosys but also from multinationals like IBM. Dr. Singh emphasised that such planned development was essential to sustain the comparative advantage that India enjoyed by having a large reservoir of qualified youth who were second to none in their ability to deliver high value services. Appreciating that the Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park had been declared a Special Economic Zone by the Ministry of Commerce, he hoped that it would show the way to other such developments in the region.

Biotech corridor

He announced that the Centre would help in making a biotechnology corridor a reality so that Punjab could be a biotechnology hub. He also had a word of praise for the Chandigarh Training on Soft Skills (C-TOSS) and the E-Sampark programmes which could be replicated by other States and UTs.

The Punjab Governor and UT Chandigarh Administrator, S.F. Rodrigues, said the Technology Park would prove to be an instrument of change in the years to come.

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