from Daijiworld's special correspondent

Panaji, Feb 23: The Goa government formally stepped into the information technology (IT) arena, with the laying of the foundation stone for a 400-crore Rajiv Gandhi IT Habitat at Donapaula, near Panaji.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi laid the foundation stone for this ambitious project which expects to generate 10,000 employments by 2008.

Recalling how her husband and former prime minister late Rajiv Gandhi was bitterly criticized 20 years back when he spoke of IT, Congress president said that his (Rajiv Gandhi's) determination has made India major IT power.

Thanks to efforts put in by the late Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, the science infrastructure was already in place in the country which responded to IT efforts, she said.

Addressing a public meeting here in presence of Govenor S C Jamir, Goa chief minister Pratapsingh Rane, Maharahshtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and others, Gandhi said that IT is being extensively used to improve tax administration.

"We are exploring how IT can be used to monitor national rural employment generation programme and also massive use of IT is thought of to introduce transparency in the government,'' she said.

Gandhi said that the union government has started mass propagation of essential software in the regional language. ``It is already there in some languages and we will introduce it in all the languages,'' she said.