Maha govt mulls 'nodal centres' at smaller cities for IT staff as WFH continues

With work from home WFH continuing for employees in the information technology sector Maharashtra is mulling to create nodal centres on the lines of coworking spaces in smaller cities and towns from where software professionals can work for their respective companies a minister has saidThe state which is home to the IT hub in Pune and also has a presence of enterprises in other pockets like Mumbai Nagpur and Nashik has invited suggestions from the industry for an inclusive IT policy Minister of State for IT Satej Patil has saidAlmost the entire IT staff has been in the WFH mode since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 and companies have been saying that the future will have a hybrid model where a good part of the employees continue working from officesAlso Read HR managers on boosting employee morale during WFHA lot of the work done by IT professionals is for critical sectors like finance where privacy concerns and data confidentiality are important which also forced a few of the professionals to continue working from offices even during the lockdownsWe are also planning to start governmentrun wellequipped nodal centres where IT employees can come and work for their respective companies All ideas are welcome in this regard Patil said in a tweet on Monday responding to suggestions made by billionaire Anand Deshpande the founder chairman of Punes Persistent SystemsMajor cities including those in the state have coworking spaces like WeWork since before the pandemic as well which typically help workers from diverse companies and sectors to help from dedicated spacesPatil said the government is trying its best to promote IT in Tier2 and 3 cities He appealed to industry lobby groups Nasscom and the Software Export Association Pune SEAP to come forward with help on creating districtwise databases suggested by DeshpandeMumbai and Pune have been leading in the IT sector and have been saturated due to migration to these citiesWe now want to take this progress to tier 2 and 3 cities like Nagpur Satara Amaravati Latur Nanded and others by giving incentives to the industries The industries will be incentivised with various facilities through a separate IT policy Patil had said recentlyA statement from Patil later said SEAP and Nasscom have responded positively to the appeal with suggestionsWith hybrid work systems becoming a reality our focus lies on ensuring equitable collaboration and access for all regardless of location Nasscom said in reply to a tweet from PatilSEAP VicePresident Vidyadhar Purandare said the focus should be on tier2 and 3 cities taking the growth forwardThis has to be in addition to enhancing infrastructure at existing IT hubs to make them more attractive destinationsSEAP would be happy to work closely with the state government A nodal agency to collect and collate data points is the need of the hour Purandare saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever