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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY POLICY
The state is
well-positioned on the key enablers REQUIRED FOR
SUCCESS
The key enablers
required to support the ITeS industry have already
been outlined in the August 2002 ITeS policy. While
the five key enablers required to support the IT
services industry are the same, the emphasis is
different and is detailed below. The key enablers are:
availability of good quality talent, low cost of
operations, availability of high quality
infrastructure, government support and investor
facilitation. A detailed analysis shows West Bengal to
be very competitive on all these dimensions.
1.
A large good quality talent pool
The State's
rich talent pool provides significant advantages to
all knowledge-based industries such as IT. The
IT-related education programme of the State will open
up avenues to further enrich this talent pool.
The State
recognises that expanding the talent base will be
central to the success of its IT initiative. The
State has undertaken a programme to expand basic
computer literacy among students in 11,000 Secondary,
Higher Secondary and Madrasa schools within the next
three years. This programme will cover nearly four
million students. The basic nature of IT education
will be closely related to market-demand. In order to
ensure this, the State will work with appropriate
private partners. Such interactions will ensure that
the content of IT education is aligned to the specific
demands of the human resources market.
West Bengal
has a large pool of quality talent and has
historically enjoyed very low attrition rates:
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1.1 |
Large pool of engineers and analytics graduates:
West Bengal has the
highest per capita spending on education among
large Indian states. This is reflected in the huge
annual intake of undergraduate students (13,000
students for engineering courses and 105,000 for
science graduate courses). There are 52
engineering colleges in West Bengal. The state
also has an existing pool of over 15,000
experienced IT professionals with more being
created every year (NIIT has more centres in
Kolkata than Hyderabad, Bangalore or Chennai). |
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1.2 |
Good quality talent pool:
The quality of talent available is demonstrated by
the fact that over 20 per cent of IIT students
belong to this region. A significant section of
the NRI entrepreneurship at Silicon Valley too
belongs to this region. In addition, premium
educational institutes like the Indian Institute
of Technology, Kharagpur (IIT-KGP), Indian
Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIMC) and the
Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) are located in
the state. Two of its graduate colleges,
Presidency and St. Xavier’s, are ranked among the
top-10 degree colleges in India.
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1.3 |
Domain knowledge in financial services, insurance,
manufacturing and travel/ logistics:
The local talent has domain knowledge in these
verticals due to the presence of local industry:
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Financial
services:
Three banks are
headquartered in Kolkata, while over 15
foreign/private banks are present in the city
and over 4,600 bank branches are present in
the state. |
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Insurance:
Kolkata is one of the largest insurance
centres in India. It is home to the National
Insurance Corporation and the Eastern
headquarters of the Life Insurance Corporation
(with 29 % of their nationwide agents). Most
private sector insurance players have also
started operations here. |
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Discrete and
process manufacturing:
West Bengal’s engineering sector employed
about 3.15 lakh people in 5,000 units in 1999.
It is home to several major discrete
manufacturing units (Videocon, ABB, India
Foils, etc.) and process industries (Haldia
Petrochemicals, Mitsubishi Chemicals, steel,
cement and oil and gas units). |
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Travel and
logistics:
West Bengal has one of India’s largest port
complexes (Kolkata and Haldia) and acts as the
logistics hub for 11 states in eastern India.
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Artistic and
creative talent:
West Bengal is
the prime source of artistic talent in India.
It has a strong tradition of visual arts for
over 300 years, is the home for modern Indian
theatre and cinema. Creative tradition of the
State in different field of entertainment
related IT and ITeS activities e.g. animation
that will significantly help it in attaining
its vision. |
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1.4 |
Low attrition rates:
Historically, Kolkata has enjoyed low attrition
rates as compared to the industry averages
(estimated at 10 percent against industry
benchmarks of about 20 percent) |
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1.5 |
State-level initiatives to ensure availability of
quality talent:
The state realises the importance of high quality
talent and plans to launch a series of initiatives
to ensure its continued availability for IT
companies. In this regard the state has
institutionalised an Academic Council that will
advice the government on these initiatives.
The state has also formed an Industry Academia
forum to facilitate regular communication on
between the pertinent issues (e.g., updating of
curriculum based on the needs of the industry).
Some of the initiatives that the state is
considering are:
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Ensuring
adequate engineering talent:
The state plans
to take initiatives to ensure adequate seats
in existing colleges and sufficient new
colleges, required number of high quality
faculty and the inclusion of foreign language
education in the curriculum of engineering
colleges. To ensure successful execution of
this strategy, the state will draw up a
public-private funding model that will ensure
that necessary investments are made in this
sector. It will also take steps to ensure the
financial self-reliance of government colleges
and viability of private colleges |
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Attracting
middle and senior management talent:
The state plans
to take initiatives to improve the social
infrastructure required to attract and retain
middle and senior management |
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