Addressing a press conference this afternoon, Mr Narvekar said that at the moment the applicants to various government jobs have been producing certificates from various private institutes, which are accepted by the government in absence of there being no norms and recognised institutions.
The IT Minister further said the central government has taken cognisance of the state’s initiative in the IT sector and introduction of e-governance and has sanctioned a grant of Rs 35 crore to take up more initiatives. He also said that this was for the first time that state’s performance in the IT sector has been rewarded.
Stating that IT parks were the real answers to the growing unemployment problem, he said that it was high time that local youth were trained to man the jobs that would be created in the IT sector, particularly the BPO units.
He also said that Goa has a population in the age group of 15-30 years as per 2001 census and that the government would have to take steps to provide them job opportunities, and that answer to this was in the IT sector and IT parks.
Mr Narvekar said the government has initiated ambitious IT Knowledge project for creation of a large pool of computer literate manpower, which would be helpful for the state to make the exercise of introducing e-governance solutions much more meaningful and enabling the citizens for quality job opportunities in IT sector, including BPO.
He further said that to set uniform norms the government would facilitate setting up of 40 training centres in different parts of the state to train youth in IT and that these institutions would come up in six months and that the courses would be subsidised. He also said that only certificates issued by these institutions would be valid for government jobs.
These centres would be set up at each of the 36 census towns and four major towns of Panaji, Margao, Vasco and Mapusa in the state. All these centres would have quality Internet connectivity, through Goa Broadband Network, he said adding that vision was to provide training to at least one member of the family till village level.
The IT Minister further said that there were requests for more IT parks at Sirsaim, Dhargalim and Cuncolim, even as he hoped that Socorro IT park would become a reality, though may be on a small scale. He also said that a private firm was planning an IT park at Tivim.
He, however, has said the government has urged those who have been demanding setting up of IT parks to come up with panchayati resolutions in favour of IT parks to avoid the problems that the government and entrepreneurs faced in similar projects.
Mr Narvekar also said that due to no availability of land in excess of 1 lakh square metres which is minimum requirement for setting up of IT-related SEZs, no big names in the IT sector (Wipro, Infosys, Satyam etc) were coming to the state, He also said that these big firms were in dictating position and want to set up SEZs only, which the state was not promoting.
He went on to add that it was time for the Goans to think over the issue and tell their leaders what they expected from the government to deal with the unemployment problem and development of the state and prevent migration of Goans elsewhere due to non-availability of jobs here.
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Quelle/Source: The Navhind Times, 16.02.2008
