Union minister of state for communications and IT, Sachin Pilot, on Monday announced a Rs 567 crore IT project especially meant to upgrade e-governance and IT services in all the north east states.

Pilot reviewed the progress of ITC schemes, BSNL and postal services in the region and implementation of Ministry's flagship scheme, the National e-Governance Plan and directed all agencies to resolve the pending issues to improve service delivery to the people.

Total expenditure of Department of IT in the North Eastern states is estimated to be Rs 243 crore for the current year and out of this Rs 190 crore has been earmarked for e-Governance, he said.

The funds are to be spent on the implementation of the State Data Centres, State Wide Area Network, Common Service Centres, State Service Delivery Gateways, e-District Mission Mode Project, World Bank Project, Special TSP/SCSP Funds, Capacity Building and Special NE Training Package.

Pilot informed that Union Cabinet has recently sanctioned a Rs 388 crore special package for North East to impart affordable ICT training to the local youth.

"Of the budgeted Rs 388 crore, Rs 63.35 crore have been targeted to be spent in this year. The project would enable training of 14,000 youth per year, which is a five-fold increase. This would ensure the availability of trained professionals in the region which would attract IT Industry to set up their units in the North East," he said.

The National Institute of E-Learning & Information Technology (NIELIT) would be imparting training for the youths out of which the existing NIELIT centres located at Imphal, Aizawl, Guwahati, Shillong, Gangtok, Itanagar would also be upgraded.

Pilot urged the IT Ministers who attended the consultative meet to expedite allotment of land to ten new extension centres allotted at Senapati and Churachandpur in Manipur; Dibrugarh, Silchar, Jorhat and Kokrajhar in Assam; Lunglei in Mizoram; Tura in Meghalaya; Tezu and Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh; besides upgrading the two existing extension centres located at Chuchuyimlang in Nagaland and Tezpur in Assam.

The Union Minister also unveiled a Special IT Training Package for the government officials of North East. The training will cover officials from different levels - senior officials at policy level, officers involved in project implementation and operation level officers.