It is estimated that in 2010, the potential for employment in Karnataka in the IT sector alone will reach 10 lakh. Currently, 2,80,000 IT professionals are employed all over India. In Karnataka alone, the estimated number of professionals is about 75,000. The Karnataka government has announced the liberalisation of higher education. New institutions that concentrate primarily on IT will be encouraged. Old institutions desiring to convert their seats from other streams into IT will be allowed to do so. Besides, 225 training centers will be established all over the state, to primarily train the unemployed educated youth.

To promote the use of Kannada in IT, the state government, working with the Kannada Abhivruddhi Pradhikara, Kannada Ganaka Parishad, Kannada and Culture Department as well as several Kannada researchers, has already evolved a common keyboard. It aims to complete the process of standardisation and prescribe standard formats and codes for all software companies.

To enable smooth functioning of the various government departments and to take IT to the common man, the Karnataka government plans to strengthen its focus on effective implementation of e-governance. It proposes to establish a center for e-governance under the Department of Information Technology. This center will try to facilitate the use of IT for the common man rapidly and effectively and will provide technical support to all the government departments in their IT projects. It will coordinate with the government departments as well as undertake a few critical projects that are likely to be used in more than one department. Several departments such as land, education, police and environment have been covered, the programmes identified by simple names such as Bhoomi (land), Nondhani (land registration), Khajane (treasury)…

The government also proposes to start an information network to connect all district and taluk headquarters.

Currently, all the districts as well as 140 taluks out of 175 taluks have already been connected via fibre optic network.

Incubation and funding

To take the IT initiative further, the Karnataka government also proposes to encourage incubation centres driven by private initiative. In addition, it plans to set up a few centres itself, to provide start-ups with facilities including computers systems and telecommunication link, for a limited period of time.

In order to enhance business with non-English speaking countries, the state government will work towards encouraging those countries to set up their own IT parks. Karnataka has already tied up with many countries and Bangalore has representative councils/offices, trade offices from China, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, Singapore, among others. The Government wants to encourage initiatives from all these countries and will promote cross interaction as well as cross-cultural activities.

A whole set of initiatives are being undertaken by the state government to encourage IT development out of Karnataka ().

In order to raise its own share of money to encourage IT development in the state, the state government proposes to float Mahithi bonds to raise Rs 300 crore. This money will be utilised for human resources development; education and training; training centres for uneducated youth; incubation centres; earth stations; IT Parks; and communication infrastructure. The money will be used based on the action plan suggested by a high-powered IT task force.

Karnataka offers possibly the widest array of venture capital for any start-ups. Apart from the state-promoted venture capital fund KITVEN, special packages are available for financial assistance from both Karnataka State Industrial Investment and Developmental Corporation Ltd., and Karnataka State Finance Corporation.

  also see : see Karnataka's IT concessions