Technical Hub In and Around Chandigarh
The city with most up-to-the-minute structural design surely has given right significance to technology. The government authorities are providing all the encouragements and necessary help to enable the setting up of promising state of the art technical institutes that are sure to bring in development and employment opportunities in a great deal to the area and perhaps to a much larger area surrounding the city, in the northern part of the country.

The first step in this direction was the setting up of the numerous educational institutions in the early years of independence of the country. These have earned a name for themselves in the years that followed and today, thanks to these, there is no dearth of qualified English speaking human resources in the area, who can take up a variety of jobs in the field of technology.

Coupled with this is the growth of the city as a beautiful architectural garden, with ample availability of power, water and open space as well as good connectivity to the rest of the country through air, rail and roadways. Today, it would not surprise anyone that Chandigarh has grown to be one of the most prominent technical hubs of the country.

The transition from a typical city of North India with limited offers for entrepreneurship to that of one of the most prominent technical hubs of the country happened over the past one decade plus. The significant steps that have resulted in this change over must be attributed to the proactiveness of the administration as well as the visions of the bureaucrats and of those in power. Also to be thanked is the great resource of think-tank in the city, thanks to the fact that it is considered as one of the best outlets for intellectual pursuits.

The most important initiative of the government is the Directorate of Technical Institute that is under the Union Territory of Chandigarh. The Directorate has four major technical institutes under its control namely the Government Polytechnic for Women, Industrial Training Institute, Central Polytechnic and the Government Central Crafts Institute for Women.

The Industrial Training Institute, commissioned in the year 1962 offers training in twenty-two different trades, with total sanctioned student strength of 412. This ITI has given the best ITI of the country award in the year 1995, by the Directorate General of Employment and Training, in Instrument Mechanic.

For the field of Information Technology, there is little doubt that the city offers a model setup for all the others of the country to emulate. The mission ‘IT for Society’ has been realized to the core by the administration of the city. The now famous Jan Sampark Project, an innovation of the administration, has been a major hit and is perhaps one of the most popular IT initiatives that are seen in the country, which has an element of participation of the masses in the drive to attain IT perfection.

As part of the Jan Sampark Project, more than fifty information kiosks have been opened in the city, which are nothing but single point access for the citizens to correspond to the government authorities including payment of various bills and registering of complaints. This is also the rare place in the country, which can boast of computerization of land records.

Praising the efforts of the administration of Chandigarh in its journey to achieve excellence in IT, the Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh himself had told in July 2006 that he was convinced that the place has turned into an IT hub. The greatest leap that the city took to reach this status has undoubtedly been the setting up of the Chandigarh IT Park.

The Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park is perhaps the biggest leap taken by the administration to usher in Informational Technology based companies into the city. This infrastructure provides world-class infrastructure that is required for the setting up of facilities and campuses by the leading BPOs and Information Technology Companies of the world.

This has, for the first time led to the setting up of many important and growing IT based companies in this area, a deviation from the earlier trend of them all moving down south at places like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. The administration has taken up the conversion of the areas of Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula into a major technical hub with such initiatives. This has resulted in not only a boost to the economy but also a sudden surge in the availability of employment opportunities.

Today, the major companies that have taken up spaces in the Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park are Infosys and DLF. Infosys alone plans to employ about five thousand people in the campus here! What is unique about this setup is the Entrepreneurs Development Centre, which is under development. This is aimed at giving support to the prospective entrepreneurs of the area, who are sure to make it big for the country and the city in the near future. The entire setup is ultra modern with hi tech facilities all over.

With the tremendous response received for the complex so far, the phase two of construction work, which aims at expansion at more than hundred percent capacities. While the setup employs about ten thousand people in the various companied housed there today, further to the expansion in phase 2, the prospects of offering employment to more than double that figure is not a distant reality.

Also on the anvil the plans for expansion of the same in the third phase, for which, the process is on towards the acquisition of land from the neighborhood. It is estimated that a total of more than 25,000 people are expected to be employed in this campus once the third phase gets completed.

With the according of the Special Economic Zone status recently the incentives in starting business here has only increased manifold. Also a factor that would guarantee the accelerated growth of the RGC Techno Park as well as the other technical institutes of the area is the ambitious plans to upgrade the Chandigarh airport, which would surely tilt the odds towards this lovely city in the competition between other major cities in terms of attracting the businessman for a fresh venture!