The Orissa information technology (IT) department has drawn up a plan to set up the second tower of the Orissa Computer Application Centre (OCAC) in the city at an investment of Rs 30 crore.
The proposed facility is being developed exclusively for IT and ITes (information technology enabled services) companies and it is scheduled to be operational by early 2010.
The second OCAC tower will have a total built-up space of about 2 lakh sq ft and the foundation stone for this tower is scheduled to be laid by the state chief minister on January 20 this year. This facility is spread over an area of 1.4 acres and it is coming up just behind the existing OCAC campus.
“Construction work for the second OCAC tower will begin soon after the foundation stone is laid by the state chief minister. This tower is being developed by the Orissa Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO)”, Pradipta K Mohapatra, the state IT secretary told Business Standard.
In another development, the state IT department is also planning to set up Kalinga knowledge centres in all the general colleges throughout Orissa for imparting soft skills training to the graduates.
For this initiative, the state government has replicated the Andhra Pradesh model where knowledge centres have been set up to bridge the gap between the industry and academia and also to provide more employability to a vast pool of general graduates.
Talking on this initiative, AK Panda, head, state IT promotion cell said, “Initially, the proposed Kalinga knowledge centres will be set up in government and government aided colleges and later extended to the other colleges in a phased manner. These centres will facilitate healthy interaction between the academia and the industry and make the general graduates more employable.”
The Kalinga knowledge centres will offer training to the general graduates for group discussion and personal interviews. While, the state government will bear the initial costs of setting up the facilities for such knowledge centres within the college premises, the operating costs for running such centres will be borne by the respective colleges.
