The Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday invited a business delegation from UK-India Business Council to visit Tier-II cities, saying it was keen to take forward ITES to the rural areas, encourage E-Governance and create modules to introduce IT in all aspects of administration.
Speaking at a seminar ‘UK-India partners in Action’ here, State IT Minister Poongothai Aladi Aruna said, the government was striving hard to make Tamil Nadu the most preferred IT destination. She claimed it was the only State that invested more than Rs. 675 crore to improve infrastructure in Tier-II cities.
Apart from the advantage of providing lower business process overheads, Tier-II cities-Tiruchirapalli, Salem, Madurai and Tirunelveli were unique in that all were well connected by air, road and rail, she said, adding that the cost advantage in the IT-BPO industry in India was around 60 to 70 per cent as compared to source markets.
The government’s primary aim was to create a paperless, citizen centric, efficient, transparent e-administration, thus creating a government that would benefit the disadvantaged and the economically backward, she said.
Quoting a recent survey which said Coimbatore was the 15th most favoured city in India for investors, she said the government has invested more than Rs. 350 crore in the IT-SEZ park, which is on the verge of completion. Within a six year span, software exports in Coimbatore had increased from a mere Rs. 50 crore to Rs. 373.74 crore in 2008-09, she said.
