Patna, Nov. 8: Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today laid the foundation stone of the state's first software incubation centre and proposed similar facilities in other districts.

The facility is part of the Centre's initiative to make Bihar an integral part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Digital India project. The maiden incubation centre will come up at the Software Technology Park of India within 18 months, officials said.

Prasad, the communication and information technology minister, proposed similar centres in Darbhanga and Bhagalpur at the ceremony held around 11.30am. Chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi welcomed the idea and offered the engineering college premises at the two locations.

The incubation centre in Patna, being set up on an area of 8,000sqft at an estimated cost of Rs 10 crore, would function as a resource centre for IT exporting units.

Omkar Rai, the director-general of Software Technology Park of India, said: 'National Buildings Construction Corporation has been selected to execute the construction of the incubation centre. It would be functional in 18 months and create direct and indirect employment opportunities.'

Such incubation centres are becoming popular in India as they help start-ups avoid initial costs and provide the necessary technical and financial support.

Apart from the IT project, Prasad urged Manjhi to set up an electronics manufacturing cluster in Bihar over an area of 50 acres that would help attract investment.

He said the Centre would provide assistance of Rs 50 crore under its initiative to manufacture electronic goods within the country to reduce dependence on imports. Similar clusters are being set up at Jabalpur and Badwai near Bhopal. He advocated the establishment of eight to 10 business process outsourcing (BPO) units in Bihar for generating employment and sought land for setting up regional centres of National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology at Muzaffarpur and Buxar.

He added that the BPOs would be provided tax exemptions and the process to open them would be liberalised.

While the Union minister sought land for the Centre-funded projects, state technology minister Shahid Ali Khan demanded assistance of around Rs 25 crore from Prasad for the long-pending innovation centre at IIT-Patna. He spoke of establishing a free public Wi-Fi network - on the lines of that in Patna between NIT at Ashok Rajpath and Saguna Mor - at Bodhgaya, Rajgir and Sitamarhi as well as plans for an IT park in Patna's Dakbungalow area.