'Telangana making strides to create well-entrenched innovation ecosystem'

Kalvakuntla Taraka Rama Rao, popularly known as K.T.R., a minister in the Telangana Cabinet on Sunday said the state was making strides towards well-entrenched and sustainable ecosystem of innovation.

"Telangana is making stride in creating a well-entrenched and sustainable ecosystem of innovation, entrepreneurship and manufacturing in the Communications and Information Technology (IT) sector," Rao said.

Talking about the introduction of policy in the field of information technology, Rao said the department has introduced progressive and business-friendly strategy.

"The State's Department of Information Technology, Electronics & Communications (ITE&C) has introduced a progressive and business-friendly IT Policy in 2016 followed by 9 subsector policies, for promotion of electronics promotion, IoT, Data Centers."

He also stated that the state is seeing great scope for Research and Development, manufacturing of Electronics and IT products.

Talking about the BharatNet project, Rao said that the state government has decided to follow 'State Led Implementation Model' for drafting optical fibre in the state.

"We are currently in the implementation phase with an aim to connect each and every home in the State with an optic fibre connection to give very high speed broadband. This will create a very big market for telecommunication equipment in the state," he added.

The government is also encouraging research in the sector of telecommunications and electronics with the help of state's premier institutes and have developed largest workforce in the electronic sector.

Rao also expressed his idea of showing state's development by hosting India Telecom Summit.

"We would like to use this opportunity to showcase the region's readiness to host telecom equipment manufacturing in the sector and host the India Telecom Summit 2018 in Hyderabad, under the guidance of your Ministry, anytime in months of January-March of 2018,"Rao said.

The state is also planning to announce an industrial park for Telecom Manufacturing along with the industry specific subsidies and incentives.

Rao asked government to gather contribution from prominent key industry figures, experts and professionals including heads of regulatory authorities, chairmen and CEOs of leading communications service providers.