Information Technology additional chief secretary Hans Raj Verma urged industry captains to create jobs in rural areas.

Overcoming COVID-19 challenges, necessitating Work From Home, among others, over the last six months, the IT sector in Tamil Nadu had fulfilled commitments to customers and helped register Rs 25,000 crore in software exports in the last two quarters, a top official has said. Over 90 per cent of employees in the Information Technology industry, working from home due to the outbreak, fulfilled the commitments made to the clients, Software Technology Parks of India Director, Sanjay Tyagi said.

“I am glad to inform you that in the last six months we have shown Rs 25,000 crore exports in the last two quarters of this financial year”, he said at an event organised by CII, Tamil Nadu, recently. This figure was actually more than last year’s exports during these two quarters, he said. “This (achieving Rs 25,000 crore exports) is something which is phenomenal that has happened,” he said. However, he did not mention the software exports made in the two quarters of the last financial year. Tyagi said Tamil Nadu has to play a very important role in achieving Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of making India a USD 5 trillion economy.

“For achieving the target (USD 5 trillion) Tamil Nadu has to at least contribute USD 500 billion to the GDP,” he said. Information Technology additional chief secretary Hans Raj Verma urged industry captains to create jobs in rural areas. “We must create sustainable jobs at the village level. Then the next round of jobs will come from Tier II and III
cities,” he said. “We will train our youth to become industry ready and they will be the USP of Tamil Nadu. With this new generation, the IT, ITeS and electronics and manufacturing sector will give Tamil Nadu the edge”, he said.

Verma said the Centre’s announcement of a defence corridor connecting Chennai, Hosur, Salem, Coimbatore and Tiruchirappalli as nodes would make the five cities serve as potential clusters and would have ecosystems for defence
manufacturing. The virtual conference, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, Tamil Nadu, was to announce the 19th edition of its flagship ‘CONNECT’ 2020, scheduled to begin from September 15.

CII Connect 2020 Chairman Suresh Raman said the event would be held till September 19th and have speakers from both domestic and overseas companies. The theme of the conference would be ‘technology as an enabler for getting growth back” and it would deliberate on the economic issues arising out of the current pandemic, he said. “We are looking at 3,000 plus delegates, 100 plus exhibitors and over 75 speakers”, he said.