Oracle inks pact with J'khand, says no investment cap set

The US tech giant Oracle today inked a pact with the Jharkhand government to drive digital transformation in the state and said it has not set any limits for technological investments.
The visiting CEO of Oracle Corporation, Safra A Catz, said technologies from Oracle are bound to drive digitisation in India, its second largest base after the US.
She hoped that the latest agreement with the Government of Jharkhand, and a similar one with Maharashtra last year, would pave the way for alliances with other states.
"The investment is unbounded. We have not bound the investments in any way...We have not put a cap on it," Catz, who is on a three-day visit to India, said adding that Oracle will support start-ups in the state.

She was speaking to media after signing a memorandum of understanding with the Jharkhand government for jointly exploring and identifying areas in which Oracle's latest cloud based technologies can be used to deliver improved citizens services.
The alliance would also aim to address the state's citizen and business requirements.

She said that just like the cloud is triggering innovation within the technology industry, it would also drive changes and increase efficiency in emerging economies like India.
"India's rapid transformation echoes the generational shift taking place in the technology industry," she said.
The company said it is looking forward to working with Jharkhand's administration to support entrepreneurship, create opportunity and improve services for its citizens as it has done with governments around the world.

Oracle has 40,000 employees in India, said Catz, who is on her second visit to India.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das said the state is ramping up IT infrastructure.
"We have initiated programmes in this direction. We have recently started State Data Centre which is very effective and helpful in providing effective and responsible governance," he said.
Das led a high-level delegation comprising state Chief Secretary Rajbala Verma, Principal Secretary to CM Sanjay Kumar, IT & e-Governance Secretary Sunil Kumar Barnwal.
Das said that in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's digital India drive, the state government is undertaking continued efforts to bridge the gap between the government and its citizens through increased usage of IT.

"We have targeted to make all the government departments paperless by the end of this year," he said.
Jharkhand is now heading towards Mobile governance, he said, adding the state is aiming to provide various information and services on time to its citizens.
"The Government of Jharkhand has distributed 100,000 mobile phones to women entrepreneurs," he pointed out.
The key areas of collaboration between Oracle and the Jharkhand government would be usage of cloud services to support the state in various administrative functioning like database management, common citizen services centre.