Gujarat to focus on IT investment at CIT '04

The government of Gujarat will look to attract investment by information technology (IT) and software companies in the state at the CIT 2004, a conference-cum-exhibition on communication and information technology which will begin in Ahmedabad on Friday.

Discussions on the use and application of IT as well as an exhibition will be held at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, campus and the AES ground in the next three days.

Organised by the state government and the Confederation of Indian Industry, the theme of CIT 2004 is "Harnessing IT for enterprise and socio-economic development" in the state. While over 300 delegates from different parts of the country will attend the conference, over 80 companies will showcase their strengths at the exhibition.

Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the event.

B H Jajoo, chairman, CIT 2004, said the state has a good scope for the IT and communications market.

With over 2,000 medium-to-large enterprises and over 2.72 lakh small and medium enterprises, the state could exploit IT and communications possibilities, he said.

"There is a network of over 50,000 km of optic fibre cable, bandwidth above 80 mb is available and the number of computers and Internet service providers are high in the state," said Jajoo.

The conference will primarily focus on the economic impact of IT on the society and digitalising countries, harnessing IT for business benefit, along with the possibilities of developing ITeS and business process outsourcing centres in the state.

The exhibition will feature several IT and ITeS companies displaying their products and services at a specially erected enclosure at AES ground opposite IIM in the Vastrapur area.

Top officials of IT companies from India and other countries as well as those working in related fields are slated to attend the conference.

Prominent among them include Kar Joo Tan, director, electronics services division of IDA, Singapore, Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT Chennai, Anand Patwardhan, director S J Mehta School of Management, Varun Jha, CIO, Tata Steel, C N Ram, head, IT, HDFC Bank, Jerry Ra, managing director, MphasiS BFL, T S Vijayan, director Life Insurance Corporation, Sunil Gambhir, chief operating officer, Tata Telecom and others.

Gujarat Informatics, the nodal agency of the state government for information technology, will co-ordinate the event. The state government has been making concerted attempts to attract IT companies to the state.

Government officials have held meetings with top IT company officials, exploring possibilities of them investing in the state.

Some topics that will be discussed at the conference are trends in convergence and last mile technology, virtual computing, managing security in large networks, leveraging IT in financial services, IT for the common man, overview of the global and Indian ITeS industry and harnessing IT for social development.