Sunday, August 7 2005 16:02 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Coimbatore: In a major achievement in Communications Technology, India's first route server has become operational in Chennai, Union Communications and IT Minister, Dayanidhi Maran said yesterday (August 6, 2005).

"The server will reroute internet traffic, including International, in case of disaster and at the time of overloading," Maran said, while inaugurating the STPI-IT Park at Kumaraguru College of Technology, on the outskirts, last evening (August 6, 2005).

Later elaborating to reporters, Maran said the Chennai server was kick-started at 7.57 PM on Friday (August 5, 2005).

Two more servers--one at Noida and another at Mumbai would be established on August 25, 2005 he said.

Asked about the features, the Minister said the server would reduce the access time from 500 milli seconds to five milli seconds and resolve Internet dispute in traffic, by automatically rerouting.

This was a major achievement as far as Communication Technology was concerned; Maran said, adding, by this India was matured on par with the developed countries.

Addressing the function, Maran said that the software sector in India had grown by 100 per cent through entrepreneurial skills, with the Government providing only the infrastructure.

However, India was facing a threat as outsourcing countries have now started preferring on-shore or near shore business rather than offshore concepts, he said.

Stating that the Ministry has established Software Quality Institute at Chennai, Maran said that the Government planned to educate people in sophisticated high end jobs and bring out about 50,000 students in five years.

The STPI-IT Park is the first of its kind, where STPI and academia have come together and set up an IT park within the academic campus, S N Zindal, Director General, STPI, in his address, said.

Of the software exports of Rs 74,020 crore by STPI units from India, Tamil Nadu accounted for Rs 10,740 crore, he said.

Earlier in the day, speaking to reporters after addressing the Graduation Day ceremony at the Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Maran said that a Semiconductor lab was likely to come up at Chennai soon, with Government participation.

Stating that about 23 billion dollars were coming to India as revenue from software firms, Maran, however, said that the future for software professionals lay in Research and Development Centres and not in the routine call centres and BPOs.