A progressive ICT policy and a robust infrastructure make Odisha favourable for investments

C J Venugopal presently is the Principal Secretary to Government of Electronics & IT department, Govt. of Odisha. Before that, he has served as the Principal Secretary to Governor and headed the position as the CMD - IPICOL, Department of Home, Science and Technology and Department of IT, Government of Odisha.
 

In an interview with VARINDIA, C J Venugopal shares the e-governance initiatives Odisha govt. is bringing to the citizens to ease their lives and why Odisha is slowly becoming the favoured destination for ICT investments - 

What kind of innovations is the government of Odisha taking to bring ease of life to the citizens?

From the IT department, we are trying to do several interventions by which the citizen would be able to get information on different programs. Like there are CSCs at the grass-root level and a lot of services are given online and people are getting benefitted from these. Several e-governance applications are being developed, because of which the citizens are able to get most of the services online and slowly the bouquet of services that we are starting to offer are also increasing. By doing this, the ease of getting information for the citizens becomes much easier. 

What are the key challenges you find when you are heading towards digitization?

There are a couple of issues that we keep facing whenever we go for digitization. Like, a lot of process engineering is required – the government is functioning at a particular rate and once you have the IT interventions and e-governance applications happening, there are a lot of changes that needs to be done in the process. We are also trying to get skilled manpower and are trying to meet these challenges while going forward. 

Could you share the friendly ICT policies for setting up of BPO/KPO manufacturing facilities in the state?

We have a very progressive ICT policy and are giving lots of incentives to the IT-ITeS companies to set up their facilities in our state. We also have a very robust electronic manufacturing policy, again for which we are giving lots of incentives to these companies to set up industry here. We are currently in talks with a mobile manufacturing company that is trying to set up an Electronic Manufacturing Cluster near Bhubaneswar. And in that cluster we are going to have a mobile manufacturing unit, a solar panel manufacturing unit and there are companies that are interested in setting up PCBs (printed circuit boards). So these are all in the pipeline and there are many other companies that are showing interests in this EMC cluster. This is really a good news for the state as we are creating the entire eco-system and also providing them the global supply chain. We are also giving them good, reliable power supply as the power outrage in our state is very low as compared to the rest of the country. For some of them who wish to come immediately, we are ensuring that they can start their manufacturing immediately without waiting for land, power and all those formalities to begin. There are more investments in the offing and we are really excited to bring these developments into the state.  

After Odisha has been adjudged as the No. 1 smart city, what benefits are the citizens getting at present and what can they expect in the coming days?
Bhubaneswar smart city has been a success story as it has been ranked no. 1 in the country. A lot of initiatives have been taken by the Bhubaneswar Smart city Corporation. ICT is definitely one of the interventions that is there. Some of these initiatives like traffic management system, keeping the city clean and green are taken keeping the present conditions in mind. 

How Odisha can become the destination for investments into ICT?

If we compare Odisha with other states, one is the availability of skilled manpower. There is availability of good manpower in the state and there are a number of educational institutions, engineering colleges, R&D institutes, which is a very positive stand for ICT companies to come and set up base here. The attrition rate of the employees is also extremely low, which is what the respective HR departments in most of the companies say. In addition to that, the infrastructure in the state is also very well built and robust, especially Bhubaneswar which is another big advantage for companies to come. We also have a strong eco-system built up and consistent policies that are good for growth. And these are some of the reasons for which we are expecting more and more ICT companies to come in and set up base.