4. Government support

The state realises the important role that government initiatives that increase IT usage play in creating internal demand and spurring growth in the industry during the formative years. It also realises that increased IT literacy improves both the demand for IT as well as the supply of trained IT workers. Hence it has already taken multiple e-governance and IT literacy initiatives.

However, the government recognises that most of the current e-governance initiatives are still department centric and information based. It intends to quickly move to transaction-based applications (i.e. enable actual processing of transactions online) and then further to the launch of user centric applications (e.g., a one stop shop government portal). It also intends to increase the intensity of the IT literacy efforts to address more people (especially government servants) as well increase the sophistication of the training. To ensure successful execution of these initiatives, the state will draw up a public-private funding model that will ensure that necessary investments are made in this sector. These initiatives have also been supported through the regulatory framework and incentives detailed in the ‘Regulatory support’ section.

The Government has addressed most issues related to IT operations. These include permission for women to work at night, permission to run three shifts irrespective of national holidays, relaxation in building and zoning laws (e.g., ability to construct centres in residential areas), exemption from zoning laws for purposes of regulations, exemption from statutory power cuts and exemption from purview of West Bengal Pollution Control Act (except for diesel generator sets). These are discussed in more detail in the ‘Regulatory support’ section

5. IT Promotion cell

The Government has West Bengal has started an IT Promotion cell[1] from Auguest 2003. The cell reports directly to the Minister-in-charge Information Technology and is led by the Principal Secretary, Department of Information Technology. This cell will play a crucial role in helping investors setting facilities in the state and also provide them with information (e.g., real-estate available, details of colleges & schools, contacts of IT companies already present) regarding the state. The promotion cell will be focused on two fronts 1). Investor promotion 2). Strengthening the IT infrastructure in the state through dedicated officers who are in charge of specific initiatives. As a part of this cell, the state has already started a mechanism of continuous feedback from IT companies located inside the state.