Addressing a press conference at the electronic city after inguruating the extended facility of international gateway and network operations centre of the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) here, the first-of-its-kind in the world, he said the government hoped to enact the cyber laws Act in the coming Parliament session.

He said currently the cyber laws Bill was before a Parliamentary standing committee for scrutiny and he being in charge of Parliamentary affairs, would persuade the committee to expedite its report and submit by April 17."I am hopeful that before May 17, the Bills will be passed and by this summer cyber laws will be a reality", Mahajan said. He said cyber laws was the first step by the government in legitimising the information technology which is the fourth generation of human communication.

Mahajan said there were demands by IT sector seeking some more concessions to small scale sector and added in his opinion there was nothing like small or big in the sector Mahajan, however, said he has already broached the issue with the finance Minister yashwant sinha, who had assured to consider the demands including extension of ESOP facility. He said he was sure that the government would take decisions on these issues before the Finance Bill was passed by Parliament.

Mahajan said the country had witnessed a boom in IT sector and 4,322 units were reigstered by March 31, taking the total number of registered companies to 5,800 so far. Union minister for tourism and culture Anant Kumar who was also present said the IT exports which were in the order of $1.2 billion currently would grow to the level of $5 billion in the next two years. The extended facility of the internationl gateway and network operations centre of the STPI would bring communication facilities to international levels and would be linked to 130 institutions across the country.