Union Minister for Communications, Electronics and Information Technology and Law & Justice, Ravi Shankar Prasad today said Government will setup every required infrastructure for development and export of IT products from J&K UT.He said this after inaugurating the incubation facility at Srinagar Technology Parks of India Srinagar.Advisor to Lt Governor Farooq Khan, DG STPI Dr Omkar Rai, Deputy Commissioner Srinagar Dr Shahid Iqbal Chowdhary, CEO Mission Youth Dr Syed Abid Rashid Shah, Director STPI Srinagar Asim Ahmed Khan was also present on the occasion.“The incubation facility will provide opportunities to IT entrepreneurs by providing plug-n-play and other digital infrastructure along with regulatory support to develop and export IT products from the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.Later the Minister had a tour of the STPI complex where officials informed him about the various facilities provided by the center for software entrepreneurs of J&K.He also interacted with young entrepreneurs and IT experts of some software companies who are using the space and other facilities of the STPI for development and export of their softwares for the outside market.The additional facility of about 24,000 sqft will meet the growing demand of IT/ITES MSMEs of the region.The officials informed the Minister that J&K has three STP units; employing around 140 resources are registered with STPI. They added that for financial year of 2019-20, estimated exports from these units are expected to be around Rs 6.76 crore.The Minister directed the officials to facilitate young software developers and encourage them to become successful software development entrepreneurs.
On the occasion, DG STPI informed the Minister that MEITY and STPI are in the process of getting various collaborating partners onboard to setup centers of excellence in the areas of Agritech, Horticulture under IOT domain.To establish these COEs, STPI is working with Higher Education Department of J&K for allocation of space at University of Jammu and SP College Srinagar.Later, the Union Minister also visited National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology Srinagar.Advisor to Lt Governor, Farooq Khan, Vice Chancellor, Kashmir University, Prof. Talat Ahmed, DG NIELIT & Joint Secretary (MeitY) Dr Jaideep Kumar Mishra, DG STPI Dr Omkar Rai, Deputy Commissioner Srinagar Dr Shahid Iqbal Chowdhary, CEO Mission Youth Dr Syed Abid Rashid Shah, Director STPI Srinagar Asim Ahmed Khan and other officials were present on the occasion.On the occasion, the Union Minister inaugurated two separate hostel buildings for boys and girls besides an IT lab with a capacity of 40 seats.He interacted with students and faculty and asked them about the facilities in the institute and scope for improvement.The Minister was informed about the ongoing course Cyber Shiksha – a skill development initiative for women in cyber security. The officials informed the Minister that out of a batch of 22 girls, 12 have got placed in different companies.The Minister asked the officials to train and place the Kashmiri youth in different job-oriented courses including artificial intelligence, Block chain etc.He said that he will personally monitor the training and placement of Kashmir students in different software courses.