Tamil Nadu   

Revised IT policy to project State as prime investment destination

— Photo: K. Pichumani

Souvenir release: IT Secretary C. Chandramouli (right), handing over the first copy of the souvenir to G. Santhanam, Secretary, Tamil Development, Religious Endowments and Information Department (left), in the presence of Health Minister M.R.K.Paneerselvam, at the international seminar on biomedical informatics in Chennai on Friday.

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu will soon come out with a revised IT policy that will raise the State’s stature as a prime destination for internal and international investments in the IT and ITES sectors, IT Secretary C. Chandramouli said on Friday.

Releasing a souvenir at an international symposium on ‘Global trends in biomedical informatics research, education and commercialisation,” Mr. Chandramouli said the new draft was expected to significantly improve upon the existing IT policy.

The IT Secretary spelt out as Tamil Nadu’s key differentiators its forward-looking government policies and the vast talent pool that combined skill with a sound work ethic. The government planned to garner by 2011 at least 25 per cent of the Information and Communication Technology space — almost double the existing share and also accord high priority to the biotechnology sector.

Apart from investing to improve civic infrastructure and carving out special economic zones for IT/ITES industries in Chennai and across Tier II towns, several initiatives had been launched on the school and college education front to enhance employability, improve curriculum and delivery of content.

Soft skills training had been introduced for schools while college-industry linkage was being strengthened, Mr. Chandramouli said.

Earlier, inaugurating the symposium, Health Minister M. R. K. Panneerselvam said the contributions of bio-sciences could further add value to the standards of excellence that Tamil Nadu had set in healthcare.

The State had begun to reap the benefits of scaled up investments in the IT sector initiated by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi during his previous term in 1996, he said.

G. Santhanam, Secretary, Tamil Development, Religious Endowments and Information Department, called for involving indigenous systems of medicine while applying bioinformatics for clinical sciences.

Mr. Santhanam said the State Budget (2007-08) had made a substantial allocation of Rs.2,285 crore for the health sector that included Rs.792 crore for public and preventable health initiatives, Rs.714 crore for medical education and Rs.374 crore for rural health services.

Syed Haque, chairperson, Department of Health Informatics, New Jersey, urged the State to step up research investments to bring about excellence in relatively new spectrum of bio-informatics. Bio-informatics was a sophisticated and multi-disciplinary science involving the methods, procedures, tools and techniques of analysing information about the human body. The two-day event has been hosted by the Sai’s Biosciences Research Institute, Chennai, the Department of Health Informatics, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-School of Health Related Professions, U.S. and the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

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