In an exclusive conversation with CXO News and APAC News Network, B. Sundar, IFS, Special Secretary, Information Technology, Electronics & Communications Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh outlines the state’s focus on IT and how it is looking at policy level changes to generate more employment and democratize opportunities across the state.
What are the key priority areas in Andhra Pradesh that you are focusing on and what are the time-bound targets that you are setting for them?
From the Information Technology (IT) perspective, the first priority area is to provide shape to our the Government’s vision of leveraging statistical methods, and mathematical reasoning through computers to integrate citizens’ data from the thirty-five departments into some cohesive whole to use for improving citizens’ experience with the Government, prevent crimes, and improve law and order. The data processing must be real-time, and we soon realized that our present procedures are limited to manipulating and tracking two-dimensional data in .xlsx and .csv formats.
There is a need for integrating stereoscopic image data in the third dimension from drones, image data from closed circuit (CC) cameras, satellite data, and citizens’ data existing in various departmental repositories, and use this dynamic data for real-time governance. As can be easily visualized, this exercise requires coordination with all the welfare departments of the state. The ITE&C department’s role is to facilitate hosting of the varied formats of the data in a secure manner, and ensure ongoing cyber security. By February2025, we expect to arrive at an acceptable solution to achieve the Government’svision.
There is a need to imbibe the tools and advanced storage techniques in the Andhra Pradesh State Data Centre, and strengthen the disaster recovery protocol.
What are the promotional activities that are being planned by your departments to attract investments across Andhra Pradesh and generate employment across the state?
Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities like Tirupati, Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada are transforming to urban centres, with diffused focus on information technology (IT), and connected infrastructure.
It is noted, though not empirically documented, that these two cities attract youth from rural areas for employment opportunities in manufacturing, IT, education, and services.
Most of the IT and electronics firms in these urban centres rely on graduates from private engineering colleges that often struggle with funding, faculty quality, and infrastructure. There is a noticeable lack of quality government or autonomous institutions that offer higher-quality education. This absence of top-tier engineering institutions forces students with higher ranks in the JEE-Mains and Advanced examinations to migrate to larger cities like Hyderabad, Chennai, or Bengaluru for better opportunities, leading to a local brain drain. The existing national-level institutions are recently formed, and require somedecades to reach eminence among their respective peers.
Without strong engineering institutions, these cities miss out on the chance to attract industries that typically partner with educational institutes for research, internships,and talent acquisition. The pace of evolution of applications in artificial intelligence (AI) is rapid and is not synchronous with the University syllabi.
The intricate job and educational scenario presented above requires further brainstorming.The delay in the formation of the capital city for Andhra Pradesh is a multifaceted issue involving political, legal, economic, and social factors.The Andhra Pradesh Electronics and Manufacturing Policy 2024-2029 is recently approved by the Cabinet. The IT Policy, the Deep technologies, and Semiconductor and Fabrication Policy is a work-in-progress
With Andhra Pradesh being already a traditional tech-savvy state, what are the various e-governance initiatives that you are implementing to make the state have the first fully-digital Government?
From the e-Government perspective, here are some recent initiatives:
- The e-Cabinet solution. The tablet computers have been pressed into usage as a medium for presenting and discussing public issues by the Honourable Ministers in the Cabinet meetings.
- The e-Vidhan solution. Here too, the tablet computers are planned to be used by all the Honourable members of the State Legislative Assembly and the State Legislative Council.
- Yield-estimation technologies.A combination of remote sensing imagery data, statistical regression, and two-dimensional satellite data is processed using the Geographical Information systems (GIS) software to predict rice yield in kgs per hectare for the 2023 and 2024 kharif and rabi rice crops in some selected districts of the state.
How are the standardizations being defined for data services, portals, software development for government departments and security audit systems?
- For standardization of web and mobile applications development, I advocate the extensive use of W3C (world wide web consortium) guidelines at https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/
- For software development, we advocate the use of open source technologies as default. Proprietary tools for software development shall be employed only after approval by the Government.
- Similarly, all web and mobile applications must be hosted in the state data centre by default after cyber security audit.
What is the current status update on the IT parks, SEZs and mega IT projects of Andhra Pradesh and what are the future plans?
As mentioned earlier, the Government would be shortly releasing the Andhra Pradesh Information Technology policy 4.0. to address the following issues.:
- Proximity to Hyderabad: Hyderabad, which is in neighbouring Telangana, is one of India’s leading IT hubs. Its strong presence and established ecosystem pose a significant challenge for Andhra Pradesh, as IT firms prefer to invest in Hyderabad due to its infrastructure, talent pool, and global recognition. This competition makes it difficult for Andhra Pradesh to attract top IT investments and projects.
- Competition from Other States: Apart from Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh also competes with states like Karnataka (Bengaluru), Tamil Nadu (Chennai), and Maharashtra (Pune) which have a long-standing reputation in IT. These states offer better-developed ecosystems, policy stability, and more attractive incentives, making it harder for Andhra Pradesh to position itself as an IT destination.
- Changing Policies: Frequent changes in industrial and IT policies due to political shifts have caused uncertainty. For instance, the lack of consistent, long-term incentives for IT companies and changes in land acquisition policies have made companies hesitant to commit to large-scale investments.
- Few Global IT Giants: While Andhra Pradesh has attracted investments from some companies, the state has not succeeded in attracting global IT giants in the same way as Bengaluru, Hyderabad, or Chennai. The absence of marquee companies and international players limits the sector’s visibility and growth prospects
How will you assess the situation in the electronics sector of Andhra Pradesh especially with respect to BIC, SIPC and SIPB matters?
The technological implementation strategy for Andhra Pradesh should focus on:
Infrastructure development, fostering innovation, and building digital skills, in Visakhapatnam for IT may be considered. Since some social infrastructure, and educational institutions are shaping up in this city, it would make economic sense to build on this platform to attract more investments from “Fortune 500 computer software and information” companies.
Since the jobs generated by firms in the electronics sector are low-key as compared to those in the IT sector, it makes sense to diffuse electronics sector firms in a distributed manner covering all the tier-2 and tier-3 cities in AP to create employment opportunities for the youth in these towns. Tirupatiand Kadapa would be fostered as electronics hubs, since some traction is present in these two towns due to earlier initiatives.
Alice Purty & Rajneesh De, APAC News Network
