Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday proposed to soon bring out a policy to enable private sector in building Data Centre Parks throughout the country, thus enabling firms to incorporate data in every step of their value chains.
In her Budget speech, she also proposed to link 100,000 gram panchayats this year with Fibre to the Home (FTTH) connections through Bharatnet.
It is proposed to provided Rs. 6000 crore to Bharatnet programme in 2020-21, the Minister was quoted as saying in a Finance Ministry release.
Highlighting the importance of 'data as the new oil', the Minister asserted that Analytics, Fintech and IoT are changing the way we deal with our lives.
For the start-ups, the Finance Minister proposed to promote a digital platform that would facilitate seamless application and capture of IPRs. A centre was also proposed to be established in an institute of eminence for working on innovation in the field of Intellectual Property.
Finance Minister noted that quantum technology is opening up new frontiers in computing, communications, cyber security with wide-spread applications.
According to the Finance Ministry release, she pointed out that a lot of commercial applications are expected to emerge from theoretical constructs developing in this area. Thus, the Minister proposed to provide an outlay of Rs. 8000 crore over a period of five years for the National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications.