Visiting Intel Corp chief executive Craig Barrett on Thursday said India was one of several destinations being considered by the world’s biggest chipmaker for a manufacturing facility.‘‘India is one of several countries we are evaluating for setting up a manufacturing facility,’’ Barrett said on the eve of renewing a partnership to bridge the digital divide with the Indian government.The Intel CEO said his company could be a consultant or a facilitator to initiatives that build and popularise new technologies and take IT to masses. The India visit would supplement Intel’s existing projects to help create competitiveness, encourage PC use in education and break the digital divide. The company has already trained 3,30,000 teachers in India under its ‘‘Teach to the Future’ programme.‘‘We (Intel) can be facilitators and consultants to government or other technology initiatives. The real work must be done by implementing agencies and policy formulators,’’ Barett added. Intel said computing platforms to address affordability, local infrastructure and community usage models were high on its India agenda.In turn, the IT ministry announced it would help Intel scale its training programme to newer states. It also announced that work would begin on a new policy to encourage IT use in education and information and communication technologies (ICT) adoption.In addition, the ministry and Intel will establish an Open Source Resource Centre for technical assistance and support government projects on open source platforms.
