Meanwhile, the company has set up a Centre for Excellence (CoE) along with Microsoft, which according to Mr R K Verma, chief technology officer, Shonkh Technologies, is the first of its kind in India. "The center, in which Shonkh will be investing Rs 10 crore in the first year itself, is being set up to develop solutions for e-governance, based on Microsoft technologies," he added.

Shonkh plans to hire an additional work force of 150 people for the CoE, thereby taking its total strength to 400 employees, within the next six months. While, Shonkh is making investments by way of hardware, software engineers and infrastructure, Microsoft will contribute by committing its consultancy resources to the CoE, said Mr Verma.

The centre would develop and work on technologies like XML, Biztalk and Commerce Server, Common Server, Digital Dash Board, Exchange Server, Unicode based Multilingual technologies, Forthcoming SmartCard operating System Interfaces and Standards and All Windows 2000 Technologies. "However, this is not an exclusive arrangement for either of the two companies," added Mr Verma.

Meanwhile, Shonkh is looking at a target turnover of Rs 400 crore, from its operations this year. The company also expects its order book to reach Rs 1,000 crore by March 31, 2001, out of which Rs 700 crore will be realized within the next two years, said Mr Krishnamoorthi. Apart from this, "the company plans go in for private placement of Rs 170 crore," said Mr Verma.Shonkh plans to develop e-governance solutions for Government departments operating in transport, networking, security, citizen cards, NRI cards, airport control, certification process, utility payments, etc.

Apart from this, it plans to customise its e-governance solutions to meet corporate requirements in the areas of e-commerce, banking, defence, finance, industry, etc., explained Mr Verma.