Manufacturing industries in Tamil Nadu should adopt Industry 4.0 in a big way as they move forward, said Hans Raj Verma, Additional Chief Secretary, IT Department.
He spoke at the virtual meet of “Connect Coimbatore” on “Digital Disruption – A Business Advantage”, organised by Confederation of Indian Industry, Coimbatore (CII).
The future of IT was in tier-two and tier-three cities. Coimbatore was a pioneer in the MSME sector and the next big wave of innovation would come from here, he said.
The State Government’s project to provide low cost, high speed internet connectivity to more than 12,000 panchayats would be completed by the end of next March. This would give a boost to IT infrastructure in the State. The IT Department had joined hands with NASSCOM to ensure the well-being of IT employees who were working from home, he added.
The need for Information Technology (IT) services had expanded with COVID-19 restrictions and it was essential to improve the IT infrastructure. When low cost, high speed internet connectivity was available across the State, healthcare and education services would be available online even in remote areas, said RB Udhayakumar, Minister for Revenue, Disaster Management, and Information Technology, who inaugurated the conference.
M. Vijayakumar, Managing Director of Elcot, said the IT/ITES special economic zone in Coimbatore on 62 acre had 26 acre available for allocation to interested industries. The land cost would be fixed shortly.
Sanjay Tyagi, Director of Software Technology Parks of India, Chennai, said Tamil Nadu was next only to Maharashtra in its contribution to the country’s economy. Hence, the State played a significant role for the development of Indian economy. The State led in implementing the India BPO scheme. It had created 8000 seats in the BPO sector in secondary cities. The success rate of the scheme was also high here.
Hari K. Thiagarajan, chairman of CII – Tamil Nadu State council, spoke on the possibilities of digital tools in the manufacturing sector. J. Ganesh Kumar, chairman of CII – Coimbatore zone, said the Connect events aimed at promoting Coimbatore as an ICT destination.
Senthil Ramalingam, convenor of the ICT Panel of CII – Coimbatore, explained the details of the theme for the conference.
