Highlighting the strides made by the IT sector and the ways in which they contributed to making life easier, Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday recalled how political parties had at one point opposed computers.
“Political parties were wrong,” he declared, referring to the times when the parties, including BJP that he represents, saw a threat to jobs from computers. On the contrary, computers have become the “biggest employment provider”, he said addressing the annual convention of the Computer Society of India (CSI) here. An indication of the significance of IT, he said, was evident in the way the Narendra Modi-led government was leveraging technology to offer various services to the citizens. These include the programme to make banking more inclusive and facilitate submission of life certificate by pensioners online. The need is to ensure IT is for the masses, he said.
On the initiatives on this front, Mr. Prasad said during his meeting earlier in the day with Chief Ministers of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, he urged them to ensure measures to have fibre duct in new highways as also in new buildings. It should be part of the plan approvals, he said. On its part, the Centre plans to extend optic fibre network by seven lakh km in the next three years. This, he said, would be in sharp contrast to the progress made so far – 10 lakh km in 30 years.
Stating that the request of the two States for one more industrial cluster had been accepted, the Union Minister said the Centre was willing to support the States irrespective of the geographical location.
Telangana Minister for IT K.T. Rama Rao, presenting CSI awards, said the government was committed to creating an environment where common man can have access to its services on mobile phones. It also wanted to make Hyderabad a top notch destination for the IT industry. Chief Ministerwanted priority for the State in the National Optic Fibre Network programme that seeks to provide broadband connectivity to 2.5 lakh in the country, he said.
