Kerala has set an ambitious target of becoming a cent percent digital state in governance, P.K. Kunhalikutty, the State Industries Minister, has said.

The initiative in this regard has been taken considering the pace of developments in the IT, ITES and e-governance sectors, he added.

He told reporters here on Monday that Kerala IT Vision 2020 eyes “5 per cent of India’s IT market, creating 5 lakh new jobs in IT, ITES and in e-governance in the State and developing 50 million sq ft built up area.

The three major IT Parks in Kerala together with Smart City have about 1,000 acres that needs to be developed, along with a few forthcoming private IT parks to fulfil this vision, he said.

The government, in its new IT policy has catered to this requirement of the sector by allowing private IT parks and also bringing the concept of IT townships wherein all facilities are provided in the vicinity of the parks.

Today the State has around 600 small, medium and large IT firms employing over 80,000 professionals directly and nearly three times that number indirectly, he said.

On e-governance initiatives, the Minister said the Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM) has successfully undertaken the e-governance initiatives through developing ‘necessary infrastructure like network connectivity, establishment of data centres and service centres; providing platforms like service delivery gateways, portal and service delivery projects and many common /shared applications for transparency, efficacy in administration and security of data.

“We are now in the process of consolidation and integration of the core IT infrastructure with the applications developed by different departments to provide e-enabled government to citizen, citizen to government and business to consumer services to all the citizens of the State,” he added.

> sajeevkumar.v@thehindu.co.in

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