Bhaskar Pramanik,(below) Sabeer Bhatia

Calcutta, Jan. 3: Microsoft India chairman Bhaskar Pramanik and Hotmail co-founder Sabeer Bhatia today met Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and IT minister Partha Chatterjee at Writers’ Buildings to discuss ways to bring in investments in information technology. Two key officials from Hewlett-Packard also met Chatterjee later in the day.

Both Pramanik and Bhatia expressed interest in working with the Bengal government.

Speaking after the meeting, Pramanik said his company would explore prospects of partnering the state in improving digital literacy in schools.

The company is also looking at introducing innovations in higher education and devise strategies to help generate employment for women in rural areas.

Sabeer Bhatia, CEO and co-founder of Jaxtr SMS, has proposed to set up channels of direct communication between the government and the citizens through the Jaxtr platform.

According to Bhatia, Jaxtr could be used to send texts on a large scale at three levels — between various departments of the state, from the citizens to various state agencies and from the government to the people.

“Jaxtr could also help the government in disaster management by formulating an SMS-based alert service,” Bhatia said.

“We have requested Bhatia to become an adviser to us in our initiative to set up an innovative centre in the state. The centre will propel the spirit of entrepreneurship. His proposal will help in our administrative work,” said IT minister Partha Chatterjee.

While Microsoft has already initiated similar projects in other states, Bengal will be the first to benefit from JaxtrSMS, which allows subscribers to send free text messages to people anywhere in the world.

Data connectivity on the phone is the only requirement for users to avail themselves of the service.