New Delhi, Dec 12: Lauding the concept of cluster of Centres of Excellence (COEs) across the country, Union Communications and Information Technology Minister A Raja today said it is a timely move for inculcating the best practices, nurturing innovations and acting as incubator for R&D (research and development) efforts.

“This is one of the most important Public Private Partnership initiatives in the Indian Telecom sector. It also has a unique concept of Coordination Center to facilitate collaborative research and sharing of research findings, ” Raja said at a ceremony of signing MoUs for COE at the India Telecom 2007 here.

MoUs for two COEs have already been signed in October, 2007.

Five MoUs for COEs have been signed by the IIT Delhi with Airtel, IIT Kanpur with BSNL, IIT Mumbai with Tata Teleservices, IISc Bangalore with Aircel and the Government of India.

The Minister said to be a world leader and to reach masses, we have to use state of the art technology especially in wireless domain.

While we have adopted all the leading communication technologies in the world, he said, “We also need to see an Indian face of technologies such as e-commerce, tele working, e-governance, e-health and e-education that affect day to day life of common man. ”

This will also bridge the digital divide and will lead to harnessing of full potential of our telecom growth, he added.

While the growth of telecom sector is very satisfactory, he said that it is essential to foster development of Telecom R&D facilities in India.

“We, as a country, have special requirements especially for rural and remote areas and indigenous R&D would be able to address those requirements effectively, ” he added.

The India Telecom 2007- Digital Divide to Digital Opportunities Conference is being organised jointly by the Department of Telecommunications and FICCI.

The objective of the India Telecom 2007 exhibition-cum-conference is to discuss new growth drivers that are revolutionizing the telecom sector in India and around the world and assess challenges and opportunities associated with new technologies and growth frontiers.

It would also focus on showcasing the huge potential that India holds in the Telecom sector for inviting investments in telecom equipment manufacturing.

The Conference will bring together a galaxy of national and international visionaries, operators, equipment manufacturers and experts representing top institutions, cutting edge technology companies and major investors along with existing and upcoming communications infrastructure companies for interaction with the high-level policy makers.

The India Telecom series of exhibition will be held every year. (ANI)