Centre to float Rs 100 cr fund to boost IT

He said Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), an autonomous society run under the DoE, will henceforth provide bandwidth to export oriented units as well as for local consumption. STPI, which has recently received licence of Internet Service Provider (ISP) from the department of communications will provide high bandwidth to private ISPs as well.

Gupta said hisdepartment will give a priority for electronic governnance and added that a state-of-the-art demonstration centre will be set up at its office at New Delhi soon. He said his department wants the state governments to take advantage of the demo centre and go for electronic governance in their respective states on a priority basis.

Maharashtra chief minister Manohar Joshi, in his inaugural address, announced that the Mumbai-Pune belt would be developed as a "knowledge corridor". He said Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation would construct five-lakh square feet of built-up space in Seepz and 20-lakh square feet of built-up space in the Millenium Park at Navi Mumbai for the IT industry and complete IT park at Pune.

Joshi said his government plans to appoint a special officer at the Silicon Valley for the promotion of IT industry in Maharashtra. He said a hardware park will be developed in Navi Mumbai on 400 hectares of land.

State industry minister Leeladhar Dake said Maharashtra continues to bethe most favoured attractive destination for investors. According to him, the state has received proposals for 7,432 projects worth Rs 1,30,000 crore of investment. He added that Rs 21,461 crore worth of foreign direct investment involvoing 1,166 projects have been approved by the Centre for Maharashtra.

National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) chairman Raj Jain announced that a study group would be set up to develop a road map for India becoming a software super power. The group would submit its report soon. Thecountry’s software exports will reach at $100 billion by 2008 from the existing $4 billion, Jain said.

Fund managers crowd out techies

MUMBAI: Fund managers and stock brokers crowded out techies from NASSCOM’s three day International software business conference started here on Monday. The fund managers were picking up ground signals about the future of the sector into which they have pored huge amounts since last one year amid whimperings that the stocks atcurrent prices are over valued.

The initail verdict after day one’s session is that the scorching growth is sustainable and many fund managers wore a look of relief, having betted on software stocks to keep their bottomline intact in the face of slump in the other sectors. Most of Monday’s session dealt with the large promise held out by the growth of e-commerce, which is still in its infancy, to software firms.

"The fact of the matter is this industry is going to go from strength to strength. investors look at software stocks as stallions. Eight out of the 10 biggest wealth creators of 1998 in the stock market has been software firms. The promise held forth by their growth is not a blip. There is no chance whatsoever that this business is going to falter, not for manay many years to come," said Madhusudan Reddy, general manager, Hughes Software Systems.

Among the fund managers present were Birla Capital’s Bharat Shah, Sundaram Newton’s N Prasad, Cholamandalam Cazanove’s Ajit Chetan and Nilesh Shah ofTriumph Securities.

Fund managers told the outcome of the conference will have a big impact on the market as it will influence their investment strategy to a great extent. "With millions of our money put in software stocks, tomorrow’s session will be critical in taking a view on stock valuations as it will deal specifically with the business area in which current market favourites are active. Today’s session confirms that the long term potential of the sector is immense. We have just touched the tip of an ice-berg," said a fund manager.