The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Plans to take WAN to taluk level in two months

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 10, 2007
ePaper

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Plans to take WAN to taluk level in two months

Special Correspondent

Government will extend all possible support to the cause of women in IT, says IT Secretary

— Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

WOMEN AND IT: C. Chandramouli (centre), IT Secretary, releasing a souvenir during the first anniversary celebrations of Empowering Women in IT, in Chennai on Friday. R. Rajalakshmi and Arun Jain are in the picture.

CHENNAI: The State Government has instituted a mechanism to establish a Wide Area Network to take connectivity to the taluk level in two months, C. Chandramouli, Information Technology Secretary, said on Friday.

A total of 5,000 service centres with better bandwidth would be set up in rural areas to enable outsourcing of low-value IT jobs to rural men and women, he said during the first anniversary celebrations of Empowering Women in IT (ewit), a forum of women IT professionals.

The Government would extend all possible support to the cause of women in IT, and stereotypes about them should be shattered. The Government and society should work together to provide a conducive environment for gender equality in IT workplaces. The industry itself should undertake branding exercises to remove negative perceptions, foster the entrepreneurial spirit in women, make the workforce broad-based and inclusive, provide secure connectivity with bandwidth for at-home flexi hours for women, promote talent and skill building and encourage networking, he added.

The forum, ewit, was an effort at networking to help women in IT get together to share opportunities and experiences to enhance the sustainability of women among the workforce, R. Rajalakshmi, Director, Software Technology Parks of India, said. The organisation would also provide mentoring and counselling services by senior women professionals, apart from creating a cell outside Chennai, she added.

A facilitator

Information and Communication Technology was a facilitator in improving India's appalling record in human development indicators, N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu , said.

The increasing proportion of women in the IT workforce was an encouraging development, though no reliable data source on the industry was available in the country.

To make analyses about the women IT workforce more reliable, ewit should exert pressure on the industry to create credible data sources, he said, adding that education and training should be given proper attention. Women in the industry should not be disheartened by the negative branding of the industry by certain sections of the media, Mr. Ram said.

The corporate world had the responsibility to build up networking systems within the corporates to encourage participatory management by women, Arun Jain, chairman and managing director, Polaris Software Lab Ltd, said.

Women's natural multitasking abilities and adoption to multiple ecosystems was an asset for the industry, he added.

Though IT in India was estimated to become a $87-billion industry by 2008, women constituted only about 21 per cent of the workforce in IT and 40 to 60 per cent in IT-enabled services, Sumithra Seshan, ewit representative, said.

Even here, the numbers in senior managerial positions were quite low. She added that ewit would reach out to Tier II cities to launch a database of women in IT.

During a panel discussion on `Role of industry, society and government in increasing the share and sustainability of women in IT/ITES,' speakers stressed the need for inclusivity of women in the workforce and the need for role models in workplaces.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu