Bangalore: India's silicon valley continues to maintain its top position in the IT sector with 52 chip design companies, 174 systems software operators and 126 communication software units, opening up new vistas of India's knowledge revolution.

State capital Bangalore is in fact home to approximately half of the world's best software companies.

"The state recorded an annual growth rate of 33 per cent as against 27 per cent at the national level. The total export of software has reached Rs 9903 crore. This year the state had 110 new software companies registering, of which 66 were 100 per cent foreign equity companies, says Dr E V Ramana Reddy, director IT, state government.

In the hardware sector, the state seems to be moving head start with growth rate of over 129 per cent. Currently, the state houses 24 companies with exports worth Rs 839 crore at the end of the financial year 2001-2002, Dr Reddy says.

The state is growing fast into an international hub for business process outsourcing (BPO). The city offers a large base of qualified manpower for processing back office operations, he says.

The state expects the software exports to touch $ 3.5 billion by 2002-2003. "The right blend of formidable knowledge resource and proactive government has contributed to the pre-eminent position of the state in the country," he says.

Understanding the prospects of IT enabled services (ITES), the government is planning to come up with a policy to encourage this sector. The state government is now extending its vision and support to develop tier-2-cities like Mangalore, Mysore and Hubli-Dharwad.

The government is aiming at providing high-speed fibre optic network between these cities and also world class infrastructure.

The vast pool of over 30,000 qualified engineers and one lakh general graduates annually equip these centres with a competent resource pool.

Besides, government also has several programmes, which are being executed for the rural youth (Yuva.com) and the agriculturists (bhoomi, Raitha Mitra Kendra). In order to enable every citizen to have access to information, government plans to have information kiosks, the IT director says.

To impart computer training to educated rural unemployed youth, government has developed a scheme called Yuva.com. The scheme has one computer training centre in each assembly constituency of the state.

PTI