Speaking to the media just after his meeting with the minister of information technology, Mr Pramod Mahajan, the president and chief executive officer of Cisco, John Chambers said that the Network Academies will be set up in all of India's 34 states and Union territories with a total investment of $8.6 million. The rest $1.4 million of a total $10 million will be spent in setting up the R&D centre, he added.

Mr Chambers has arrived in New Delhi on Monday afternoon and will be in India till Wednesday. He will address a few business conferences being organised by Cisco, CII and Nasscom and will also meet government officials and Indian industrialists before leaving for China.

Mr Chambers said that he had a three-point agenda in his mind for the visit to India. The first is focussed on IT infrastructure development in the country. He said that India is a major talent-pool for the software industry and would be leading in the global market in coming years.

The second objective is to initiate the partnership with the Indian government in its efforts to propel growth in the IT sector. "I am here for forging a partnership for life," said Mr Chambers.

The third agenda on Mr Chambers' list is leveraging the applications of information technology and building up a skill base. Mr Chambers said that setting up academies is a part of this objective. "Cisco academies have been quite successful in the US where we have trained around 100,000 network specialists in the last five years," he said.

He added that the academies are going to be of a global standard as the content and course are going to be the same all over the world. The engineers with certification from these academies will be able to fetch around 50-100 per cent more salary in the world market, he added.

Welcoming the move, Mr Mahajan said, "What is critical about Cisco's initiatives in not the scope of investment but the nature of investment. Cisco is helping India to take IT for masses, by setting up these academies in all the states covering length and breadth of the country".