Chief Minister Edapaddi K. Palaniswami told the information technology (IT) industry to have discussions pertaining to increasing investments and come up with strategies to increase employment rather than announcing retrenchment. He told the captains of the IT industry to offer constructive suggestions to the State government for the growth of the industry.
The Chief Minister was inaugurating the 18th edition of CII CONNECT 2019, an international conference and exhibition on Information and Communication Technology, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the government of Tamil Nadu and Software Technology Parks of India (STPI).
The Chief Minister appealed to the gathering to cooperate in establishing new IT Industries in emerging technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence and thereby increase employment opportunities and provide efficient services to every citizen.
“Tamil Nadu government would be releasing the Electronics Hardware Manufacturing Policy shortly. This policy will enable new start-ups, companies which will bring investments and jobs and contribute largely to the economic development of the State,” he said. He pointed out that the State had received investments to the tune of ₹6,500 crore in the IT space in the last one year and has created over 60,100 new jobs.
Mr. Palaniswami also launched a few initiatives of the Tamil Nadu eGovernance Agency (TNeGA).
Santhosh K. Misra, CEO of TNeGA, said the first initiative was an AI-based pest identification in crops which had been integrated into the Uzhavan app. “With AI you can detect what insect has affected your crop and an alert goes to the farmer. Officials from the Agriculture department will analyse the pest and revert with solutions,” he said.
“We have come up with a facial recognition system and experimented this in two corporation schools in Chennai. Marking attendance takes a lot of time and this system will help reduce the time. It will record students face when they enter and exit the school,” Mr. Misra said and added that this would soon be rolled out across the State in a phased manner.
During the event, Sridhar Vembu, founder of Zoho Corporation, spoke about retaining talent in tier-2 and tier-3 towns.
He said that he would soon be setting up a facility in Kumbakonam and providing jobs to local people in that area.
