Odisha can become centre of e-manufacturing: Prasad

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Bhubaneswar: Odisha has the potential to turn into a centre of electronic manufacturing, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said here Saturday.
“Odisha has enough talent to become a centre of electronic manufacturing and the government wants the state to be the hub in this sector,” said Prasad, the Union Electronics and IT Minister.
Prasad, along with Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, inaugurated the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) – ‘STPI ELITE’ and Secondary Data Centre of National Data Repository here.
The Cenre has been focusing on the development of Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Eastern Uttar Pradesh to make eastern India more developed, and to bring it on par with other developed regions of the country, he said.
Describing the STPI, Bhubaneswar as the biggest technology park in eastern India, Prasad said it will empower Odisha and reduce the digital divide between “digital haves” and “digital have-nots”.
STPI will bring digital inclusion by way of a start-up revolution and large scale e-transaction through JAM (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile), he said. Noting that India has around 130 crore population and 120 crore mobile phones, he said of them, 45 crore are smart phone users, while 55 crore Internet connections have been provided so far and one lakh villages connected with broadband.
The minister said through JAM and DBT, the government has disbursed `4 lakh crore subsidy benefit. Referring to Aadhaar, Prasad said divulging its details does not mean one’s iris and finger print data will get leaked. “It has been indigenously encrypted so that no one can have access to the personal data of a citizen,” he said. Prasad said data authentication of 3 crore people is being done every day and 15 crore farmers have been given soil health cards. “About 2.74 lakh hospitals have become digital hospitals through which tele-medicine facilities are being provided in Medical College Hospitals and many district headquarters hospitals.” He said 13 companies were given in-principle approvals to start BPOs in Bhubaneswar, Jaleswar, Cuttack and Balasore.
The state-of-the-art building is spread over three acres of land with an investment of around `50 crore. STPI-ELITE is a mix of both modern and traditional architectural design which will house STPI’s next generation incubation facility, fabrication lab in collaboration with MIT,USA, ESDM Incubation and Data centre to cater to the need of industries.
Talking to media, Dhramendra Pradhan said, “The youth of Odisha will have accessibility of data and we will provide free data to the youth for their researches and new business models.” He said data mining and repository are highly needed for oil and hydrocarbon exploration, and production. He said `3.5 crore incentives were being provided to start-ups in the fields of innovation and incubation.