With 105 centres in India, the company plans to add 30 new IT training centres in the State by March 2000. The company is also planning to set up a network to assist secondary and higher secondary school students with IT education and training, by providing faculty and course material to 30 selected schools by the end of the year. Nearly 10,000 students are expected to benefit from the training.

``Maharashtra is where we started from, and and we feel it is our duty to assist the state in its march toward a more IT savvy political and economic system,'' said Pradeep Tripathi, managing director and chief executive officer, Edutech Informatics. The company has tied up with three educational institutions, the Vidya Pratisthan, the Yashwantrao Chauhan Maharashtra Open University and the Terna Charitable Trust, to take IT education into the heartland. ``The schools can gain from our expertise and experience. They need not bother about changing syllabi, and they can save on investment in courseware upgradation and faculty training,'' says S Maliwal, General Manager-West, Edutech Informatics.

In Maharashtra, Edutech has been selected to conduct IT training courses for government officers. Over 1,000 officers have been trained during the last three months. By the end of March 2000, over 70 lakh officers will be trained, estimates Edutech. ``The Indian IT industry is expected to spawn over 1 million new jobs by the turn of the century,'' says Tripathi, citing a recent NASSCOM - National Association of Software Service Companies - study. Other initiatives on the anvil are creation of an education council to meet every quarter and review the current course curriculum against changing industry-specific needs. The company has also set up a task-force within the organisation to conduct on-going quality audits across informatics centres in the country.