Patna, Feb. 14: Bihar would have its information technology (IT) policy ready by March end.

At present, the state IT department is looking into the suggestions put forward by the people as part of its exercise of fine-tuning the document which would set out the policy.

“Having a comprehensive policy is our main objective and all aspects would be looked into before finalising the policy document. The exercise would be completed by March end,” IT department minister Shahid Ali Khan told The Telegraph.

He said the policy document would also take care of the interests of local entrepreneurs.

The IT department has been moving in a methodical manner as far as formulation of the policy document is concerned. It released a draft policy document in January this year. The release was followed by an interactive session at which stakeholders and academics were invited. After this session, the department put up the draft policy document on the government website, soliciting suggestions before giving final touches to the document.

One of the suggestions talks of setting up an incubation centre with state-of-the-art computing facilities by the state government. This has been suggested so that medium and small players in the IT field, who cannot afford to invest much to begin with, could make use of it for carrying out their work by paying user charges to the government.

The second suggestion talks of adding a point in the policy document so that big players getting the contract of large projects in the IT sector would be compelled to outsource 30 per cent of the work to local entrepreneurs.

Replacing the reimbursement of funds as part of incentives with rebate to be given at the time of the investment itself and providing an additional 15 per cent cost advantage are the two other major suggestions that have been put forward by the stake-holders.

“We have put up all these suggestions along with the draft IT policy for the consideration of the minister. Any change in the draft policy document would be introduced in accordance with the directive issued by him,” said Arun Kumar Singh, principal secretary, IT.

As the system works, after finalisation of the policy document at the department level, it would be put up before the government and only after its approval, the policy would be adopted.

As things stand now, Bihar does not have an IT policy in place. The absence of a policy is a reason why the state has not been able to attract prospective IT investors.

In order to address this void, the IT department came up with the draft policy which has touched almost all major points, including creation of a venture fund with a corpus of around Rs 100 crore to promote entrepreneurs to set up their innovative units in Bihar, setting up of IT parks to promote IT and IT enabled services (ITeS) companies, rebate on stamp duty and electricity duty, giving exemption from land and building tax to commercial buildings dedicated to the use of software/IT industries.

Incentives apart, the draft policy also talks of the proactive role the government would play to provide support to prospective investors in the form of power supply and tax rebates.