Information Technology (IT) is one of the fastest growing sectors in the economy. Even if one takes into account the recent slowdown in the world economy and the slump in fortunes of IT stocks, as a sector IT is performing much better than other sectors. A notable example here is that of Infosys Technologies which has beaten all projections and shown a tremendous rise in net profits for the second quarter of this year. Irrespective of whether IT is a fast growing industry or whether it is actually growing not so fast, Information technology and its latest advancements are changing our lives like very few other technologies have. There are innumerable examples of the areas where use of IT has made the life of common citizen simpler and smoother. To mention a few, railway reservations, air reservations, declaration of results of CBSE and other important Board examinations on the net, tele-medicine and tele-education are all benefits we have been deriving because of the use of information technology. There is no gainsaying that IT is a technology here to stay. To harness the full potential of this technology, India needs to build a strong user base of Information Technology. In most of the sectors, whether it is industry, trade and commerce, agriculture or government departments, the use of Information Technology at present is limited. Efforts have, therefore, to be made to increase the use of IT in these sectors. Also required for an IT revolution in India is a strong communications infrastructure. VSNL has taken a large number of initiatives in this respect; more needs to be done however. The Internet bandwidth has to be augmented to remove any communication bottlenecks in the sphere of speedy development of Information Technology. We also need to bridge the so-called "digital divide" and all the parts of the country should have uniform access to adequate bandwidth. One of the prominent reasons for the fast and dynamic growth of the information technology sector is its huge employment generation potential. Most of the states in India have announced elaborate IT Policies which are aimed at attracting huge investments in IT sector. In addition to generating revenues for the States from these investments, it will also provide employment to locally qualified manpower. In Tripura also, information technology has a lot of potential. This is one sector that is not constrained by the geographical location and remoteness. The transport bottlenecks which seem to have affected industrial development in Tripura will not affect in any way the development of IT Sector. One of the pre-requisites for development of the IT sector in any place is connectivity to the outside world through Internet, that is, adequate bandwidth. Once the connectivity is available and with other basic infrastructural requirements, like uninterrupted power supply, Tripura can be as good a location for IT industries as any other state, like AP, West Bengal or Karnataka. Another requirement is availability of abundant IT-knowing and qualified manpower. Tripura with its highly literate population is best placed to reap the advantages on this score. The quality of IT manpower may, however, need to be augmented. We already have a large number of training institutions in the private sector, Like NIIT, SSI, APTECH, CMC, ZED, who are offering courses for basic computer literacy. But we have only recently started a B.Tech. course in Computer Science and we are yet to start courses like BCA, MCA and BIT. We, therefore, need to initiate more and more advanced computer courses in Tripura - both in the Government and in the private sector - to increase the literacy levels of the IT manpower here. As stated above, the use of IT in various sectors of the Indian economy and the society is limited, and Tripura is no different. What is, therefore, required in Tripura is to increase IT awareness among different sections of the society for which we have to strive to increase the use of IT in Agartala and other towns. This is already happening in Agartala with the coming up of a large number of cyber-cafes, but we need to take it to all corners of the State. The Government of Tripura is setting up Community Information Centres (CICs) in all Blocks of the State under a project sanctioned by Ministry of Information Technology. Three such CICs have been already set up in Khowai, Bishalgarh and Mandai blocks and it is expected that all Blocks of Tripura would have CICs functional by the end of next year. With the setting up of CICs, information technology revolution would really be taken to the grassroots. The State Government is also planning to streamline delivery of Government services using IT as a tool. Efforts are also underway to computerize different government activities in the State Government. It is my firm belief though that the initiative from the Government side alone would not suffice and some initiative also needs to come from the private sector. One such initiative in Agartala has been the launching of a website: tripurainfo.com by different journalists. This website has been attracting good hits and has increased IT awareness no end. More such initiatives would be really helpful. With increasing IT awareness, people would also start demanding IT-enabled services, like on-line banking, computerized deposit of telecom and power bills and on-line declaration of results of Board exams, in Tripura also. The day these services become available would be a golden day in the history of IT development in Tripura. I am confident this day is not too far away!