Himachal Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur along with Union Minister of Electronics & Information and Technology and law and Justice, Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday laid the foundation stone of Incubation Centre of Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) to be setup at Mehli near Shimla.
The Park would be developed with incubation facility with approximate built up area of 14,000 sq ft at a tentative cost of Rs 10 crore. This would accommodate about 15 to 20 startups with direct employment to 300 to 400 IT professionals and four times the indirect employment in over five years.
Thakur said that another STPI was proposed to be setup in Kangra district near Gaggal Airport and the land for the same has been identified. The state government had set up ten targets for the first 100 days and out of these nine have been achieved and tenth target had been achieved with the laying of foundation stone of this Centre.
The Chief Minister said that the Park would go a long way in encouraging new IT/ITES entrepreneurs and generate employment opportunities and multiple IT prospects. He said that 113 Government services were being provided in rural areas through 2858 lok Mitra Kendras. In the first phase of Bharat Net Project, out of the 251 Panchayats, 221 have been provided high speed internet facilities and the work was in progress under the second phase to provide this facility to the remaining 2,785 Panchayats.
Speaking on the occasion, Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the growth in exports by the STPI units from Rs 52 crore in 1992-93 to more than Rs 3,50,680 crore in 2016-17 shows that STPI has played a key role in creating Brand India and transforming the country as the most prefered IT destination. He said that it has also played a phenomenal role in promoting Tier-II/ Tier-III cities of the country.
Prasad announced the all the district hospitals of the State would be made e-Hospital and directed the NIC to immediately start work in this direction. He also announced that National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology would be established in Mandi at the earliest. He announced that 50 villages of the State would be made Digital Villages.
The Union Minister said that STPI additional Incubation facility at Shimla would act as a resource centre for IT/ITES/ESDM units by offering general infrastructural facilities like ready to use Incubation space, High Speed Data Communication with uninterrupted data connectivity and other amenities required for export of software and services which would help to create direct and indirect employment opportunities to IT educated youth of the region. He said that this would also help in promoting the region as one of the preferred Information Technology destination of the country.
Principal Secretary IT Jagdish Sharma said the Centre would go a long way in making Himachal Pradesh an IT hub of the country.