CM to head IT Council

By K. Ramachandran

CHENNAI, JULY 31. The State Information Technology Task Force, constituted by the previous DMK regime, has been disbanded and in its place, a new State-level Tamil Nadu Information Technology Council (TNITC) headed by the Chief Minister, formed.

The TNITC will comprise members from the Government, the industry and the academia. An executive committee, headed by the Chief Secretary and comprising selected representatives from the council has also been formed.

Simultaneously, the ``Sub-Committee on Tamil in IT'', also a product of the previous regime, stands disbanded.

Significantly, the GO No.14, dated July 25, on setting up of new IT Council does not name any particular individual. Rather, its members will be mostly ex-officio representatives from the Government, the industry and the academia.

Besides the Chief Minister, the TNITC will have the Education Minister, the Chief Secretary, the Development Commissioner, Secretaries of the Industries and the Information Technology Departments. The IT Department Secretary will be the council's convener.

From the `industry' side, presidents of the NASSCOM and the Manufacturers Association of IT, the executive director of the Electronics and Software Export Promotion Council and the chairman of the CII's State council will be the members.

The `academic' representatives will be the Vice- Chairman of the TN State Council for Higher Education (TANSCHE), the Director of the IIT-Madras and the Anna University's Vice- Chancellor. The Chairman and Managing Directors of the State- owned TIDCO and ELCOT, the Director of the Software Technology Parks of India and representatives of BSNL and VSNL will be the `permanent invitees'.

The executive committee will have the Chief Secretary, the Development Commissioner, the IT Department Secretary, the chairman of the CII State Council, the Director of the IIT-Madras and the Vice-Chairman of the TN State Council for Higher Education.

As per the GO, the council will meet periodically to review the progress of IT sector in the State and give policy directions. The council and its executive committee will have the liberty of inviting outside experts and also to form working groups to address any issue from time to time.

The EC will meet regularly to review developments in specific areas such as infrastructure, telecom, IT in government, content localisation etc. It would look after the technical responsibilities of the erstwhile sub-committees of the IT Task Force.

All technical aspects of ``Tamil in IT'' looked after by the old sub-committee will be handled by the Tamil Virtual University.

In effect, the TNITC looks a leaner body than the old Task Force. Official sources say this ``will ensure better participation by most of the members at meetings''. On the reason for having only `ex-officio members' in the council, the sources say that the idea is to ensure continuity at policy-making level and nothing is seen to be centered around individuals.

While the erstwhile Task Force had top IT leaders in the State as its members, the present council does not seem to have such membership here. For this too, the official reasoning is different: IT is getting to be all-pervasive and persons coming to occupy the new positions will come from IT enabled background only. In any case, the council will be a policy-making body, which is not going to require people with computing skills alone.

Even then, the Government has ensured that outside experts can be called in any time to help the council or its EC, the sources note.

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