India budgets US$102 mil for ICT projects in the north-east

India’s Union Minister of State for Communications and IT, Sachin Pilot, has announced that the government will spend INR 567 crore (US$102 million) on upgrading e-government infrastructure and IT services in eight states situated in the north-eastern parts of the country, the FutureGov reported.

The money will be spent on capacity-building for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL, India’s state-owned telecom company), building at least ten new ICT training centres for the youth, and upgrading the postal service using ICT in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura.

The youth training centres “will ensure availability of trained professionals in the North-East and will attract the IT industry to set up units in the region,” said Pilot. The training centres are expected to train at least 14,000 students per year.

Currently, all the youth centres—involving the National Institute of E-Learning & Information Technology (NIELIT)—train fewer than 3,000 youth per year, which is not enough to meet the demand for ICT professionals in the region.

The Minister also announced a programme that will provide ICT training to government officials from all levels of the hierarchy in the north-eastern states. In his statement, Pilot urged public servants to resolve any issues that remain in e-service delivery in the region, in line with the National E-Governance Plan, and also because the BSNL will be planning the rollout of the National Optical Fibre Network in the near future.

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