The Tamil Nadu Department of Information Technology has been renamed as the Department of Information Technology and Digital Services, Minister T. Mano Thangaraj informed the Assembly on Wednesday. He also said a new IT park would come up at Kanniyakumari at a cost of ₹50 crore.
Two ‘plug and play’ facilities for startups are also on the cards. One facility, measuring 30,000 square feet, would be established at the ELCOT-Special Economic Zone at Gangaikondan in Tirunelveli district at a cost of ₹6 crore. The second facility, measuring 27,461 square feet, would come up at ELCOSEZ, Hosur. The cost of setting up these two facilities would be borne by the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT).
Mr. Thangaraj said an Integrated IT Signature Complex, measuring over 2.6 lakh square feet, would be established at a cost of ₹150 crore at Kotturpuram in Chennai. Sources in the department said this complex would house a co-working space, startups and IT firms, among others. “Around 100 new services would be provided by the Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency through its e-sevai centres. This is in addition to the 192 and 72 services currently being provided through online and offline modes,” the Minister said. It has been proposed to arrive at estimates of expenditure incurred and allotment of investment in every department as part of measures to digitise all government departments.
