T’PURAM: The zonal meetings on the draft IT policy organised by the Kerala State IT Mission to elicit the industry response on the draft policy is struggling to find consensus on contentious issues.
The zonal meetings on the recently announced draft IT policy were planned to discuss and address the issues raised by the industry leaders while preparing the final policy. As part of this, the meetings were held in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi on February 12 and 14 respectively.
While the government could ensure the presence of only a few key representatives of industry at the meeting held in the capital the other day, several representatives of the industry boycotted the meeting arranged in Kochi on Wednesday. The next zonal meeting is scheduled at Kozhikode on Saturday.
According to those who participated in the meetings, the initiative was just an eyewash and an abortive attempt to convince the industry about the government approach.
At both the two zonal meetings the government representatives found it hard to give satisfactory explanations to many of the questions, especially those regarding the government’s move to give allout support to popularise Free Software Movement as a state sponsored initiative.
Also there were no fruitful interactions towards the possible measures such as incentive schemes for the development of IT sector.
At one point, Joseph C Mathew, the IT Advisor to Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, told the participants that the move to popularise the Free Software Movement in Kerala was a political decision and there was no question of the government going back.
However, the industry representatives held the view that the catagorical declaration of support to any specific technology would only bring a bad name to the state.
The meeting in Kochi received severe criticism as the IT Secretary was not present at the meeting and the meeting was organised at a very inconvenient place. Many of the company representatives moved out of the venue as they felt the meeting a gimmick.
Meanwhile, sources in the industry expressed doubts over the possibility of generating a general outlook for the industry by interacting with only a few participants from the industry in a few hours.
How the government is planning to address the needs and anguishes of small and medium level companies still remains a mistry, they said.
The zonal meetings on the recently announced draft IT policy were planned to discuss and address the issues raised by the industry leaders while preparing the final policy. As part of this, the meetings were held in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi on February 12 and 14 respectively.
While the government could ensure the presence of only a few key representatives of industry at the meeting held in the capital the other day, several representatives of the industry boycotted the meeting arranged in Kochi on Wednesday. The next zonal meeting is scheduled at Kozhikode on Saturday.
According to those who participated in the meetings, the initiative was just an eyewash and an abortive attempt to convince the industry about the government approach.
At both the two zonal meetings the government representatives found it hard to give satisfactory explanations to many of the questions, especially those regarding the government’s move to give allout support to popularise Free Software Movement as a state sponsored initiative.
Also there were no fruitful interactions towards the possible measures such as incentive schemes for the development of IT sector.
At one point, Joseph C Mathew, the IT Advisor to Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, told the participants that the move to popularise the Free Software Movement in Kerala was a political decision and there was no question of the government going back.
However, the industry representatives held the view that the catagorical declaration of support to any specific technology would only bring a bad name to the state.
The meeting in Kochi received severe criticism as the IT Secretary was not present at the meeting and the meeting was organised at a very inconvenient place. Many of the company representatives moved out of the venue as they felt the meeting a gimmick.
Meanwhile, sources in the industry expressed doubts over the possibility of generating a general outlook for the industry by interacting with only a few participants from the industry in a few hours.
How the government is planning to address the needs and anguishes of small and medium level companies still remains a mistry, they said.
0 comments:
Post a Comment