Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on Tuesday evening launched the ICT Academy, a premier organisation to develop IT skills in cooperation with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

'The government of Tamil Nadu, a pioneer in promoting Information Technology, was the first to establish a state-of-the-art facility in Chennai,' Karunanidhi said during the launch.

'Tamil Nadu's share in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is 11 percent. Our government is determined to increase this share to 25 percent by 2011,' he added.

The software exports rose from Rs.144 billion (3.6 billion) in 2005-06 to Rs.207 billion in 2007-08 and is scheduled to cross Rs.260 billion in the current fiscal, Karunanidhi said.

Gopal Srinivasan, head of the Tamil Nadu chapter of the CII, hailed the effort saying it would create a world-class body to train faculty.

'The ICT Academy, an idea mooted by CII last year, is yet another milestone achieved by the Tamil Nadu government in the ICT sphere that will help initiate a world-class organisation to train faculty,' Srinivasan said.

The government endeavour is the first-of-its-kind initiative in developing a framework including designing of curriculum with the active participation of experts from ICT industry and academia.

The academy will focus on improving the quality of students passing out of institutes and colleges in Tamil Nadu to make them industry ready and immediately employable especially in tier-two and tier-three cities, a CII press release added.

The government of India has provided a corpus fund of Rs.60 million to this effort. IANS