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Kolkata, July 18: It seems that when the West Bengal government initiates a programme of change, it does not believe in leaving any detail untouched. The state Government has plans to transform the Banglar Mukh (Face of Bengal) information kiosk into a payment gateway.
The move to transform the information kiosk is a bid by the state Government to make it commercially viable and popular with the masses. ‘‘Once the plan is executed, these kiosks will allow people to examine their State Electricity Board bills and even pay them through the Banglar Mukh kiosks,’’ said the state information technology minister, Manabendra Mukherjee.
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Admitting a miscalculation on the part of the state, the IT minister said, ‘‘We made a mistake with these information kiosks. We did not realise that the market for the purchase of information from a kiosk was not a commercially viable option then.’’
The minister said that in a subsequent court case the judge had ruled that the agencies that had taken distributorships for the Banglar Mukh kiosks would have to pay Rs 10,000 each to the state. ‘‘But we have decided to relieve the agencies of such a financial burden towards the government,’’ said Mukherjee.
The IT minister also declared that West Bengal was ‘‘doing quite well’’ as far as the IT sector was concerned. ‘‘Companies which have been rated as among the top 20 under Nasscom have shown a keen interest in acquiring land in the state,’’ said the minister. Apart from this, Videocon will set up a hardware factory at Taratala, while GE Capital will be conducting research and development in the state.
According to the minister, there are 220 companies operating out of West Bengal at present, which provide direct employment to around 30,000 people. ‘‘We hope that by 2010, IT employment will exceed four lakh personnel,’’ said Mukherjee.
Kolkata newsline