Question : FRESH POLICY FOR I.T

(a) whether the Government have recently reviewed the progress made in the I.T. Sector as a result of fresh policy initiatives and financial package of incentives in the context of liberalisation and globalisation;

(b) if so, the details thereof in terms of standard norms and targets proposed and achieved;

(c) the details of foreign investment proposals received, cleared and pending consideration during the current year and implications thereof; and

(d) details of action plan finalised in this regard?

MINISTER OF PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI PRAMOD MAHAJAN)

(a) and (b): Yes, Sir. The Government has taken many policy initiatives in the IT sector. These are:-

- The Ministry of Information Technology had set up a Working Group on Information Technology for Masses. The Working Group has recently submitted its report and have made a number of important recommendations. The Working Group set an ambitious target of at least 100 million Internet connections by the year 2008 and 1 million Internet enabled IT Kiosks/Cyber Cafes to be established covering the entire length and breadth of the country.

- To increase the reach of IT to the Masses, the Government is setting up Community Information Centres at all the 487 blocks in the North East Region of the country including Sikkim. Such schemes will be set up in other remote areas of the country also.
- The Government have set up 15 Software Technology Parks in the country to provide High Speed Data Communication facilities and incubation facilities to the software exporting units in different parts of the country. Few more Centres are being set up in the country.
- A National Venture Fund for Software and IT Industry(NFSIT) has been set up with the cost of Rs.100 crores to provide Venture Capital Finance to the IT Companies.
- A Task Force on Human Resource Development under the Chairmanship of Minister of Human Resource Development have been set up. The Task Force among other things will give its report in a month for doubling IITs/RECs from next academic year and tripling the intake in the next two years.
- The Government has also announced a number of incentives for the growth and promotion of Information Technology business abroad. The details of these incentives are at Annexure.

- A number of initiatives have been taken under the TDIL(Technology Development for Indian Languages) programme of the MIT. Resource centres for Indian Languages solutions at 13 Educational and R&D institutions to cover all the official languages under the constitution. The National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development has set a software export target of US$ 50 billion by the year 2008. The software exports during the year 1999-2000 were of the order of US$ 4 billion. For the Information Technology Hardware, the said Task Force has set an export target of US$ 10 billion by the year 2008.

(c) and (d): During the current year i.e. 1.1.2000 to 30.6.2000, the details of proposals approved in I.T. Sector is as under:-

Total No. of approvals	: 297
Technical approvals	: 8
Financial approvals	: 289
Amount of FDI approved (Rs. in crore)	:	4108.54