Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad Tuesday said that the Digital India mission is to empower common man in the country. Inaugurating the incubation facility of Software Technology Park of India, Mohali, the Union IT Minister said that Digital India is also for the poor and underprivileged in the society and directed STPI Mohali to provide special facilities to promote entrepreneurship amongst dalit youth.
The incubation facility is the largest among Tier-II cities and would ramp up the region’s march towards one of the most favoured IT destination in the country, an official said. On the request of Union Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal to make STPI Mohali to innovate IT solutions for farmers, Prasad endorsed the idea and assured that STPI Mohali would become the centre for innovation for farmers too, and should become a beacon of Digital India.
STPI will very soon be laying the foundation stone of its next centre in Amritsar to help the smaller cities become part of the digital India movement. Harsimrat Kaur Badal said that Punjab is an agrarian state and it requires innovative IT solutions to help farmers cope up with the vagaries of nature and reduce their dependence on weather.
Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Vijay Sampla said that Punjab has largest number of Scheduled Castes and tribes who need to be empowered and STPI can contribute immensely. Spread over nearly 1.40 lakh square feet of builtup space, the incubation facility would go a long way in encouraging new IT/ITES entrepreneurs and startups to make it a hub for entrepreneurship.
By Baishakhi Dutta
