The Central Department of Information Technology would soon initiate projects to set up DNA/bioinformatics parks in selected locations in the country to provide the needed impetus to the development of Bio-IT solutions for biotechnology and bioinformatics sector.

KK Jaiswal, secretary, Department of Information Technology, who was in Pune to attend a meet organised by TiE, Pune chapter, informed that the government is now seriously considering such projects.

He further informed that the research required to build the park would be carried out by global consultants, who would also advise the government on the adoption of global best practices and would also assist the government in identifying suitable partners to build the park.

The project, he said is an initiative of the DIT (Department of Information Technology), Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) and Government of India. The project is also endorsed by DBT, which is working in association with DIT for the initiative. He said the objective of the park would be to facilitate the export of Bio-IT solutions and attract FDIs in the field of IT and health sciences.

"The project also aims at the development of one more park under the STPI scheme to cater to the IT related needs of the health sciences industry," noted he. Further, the park would also endeavor to promote India as a global hub for IT solutions in the health sciences sector by enabling companies to move up the value chain by accessing world-class bio-computational infrastructure and services.

The services that the DNA/Bioinformatics Park would offer include computational modeling and deep computing for genetic and cellular research, deep computing for clinical trials, protein folding simulations, grid computing for resource and data sharing and development of software/tools for data mining, data analysis and data integration amongst other applications.

The potential partners in the project will be the DIT, state governments, several private companies and anchor tenants, said he and the potential tenant groups in the park would be global pharma companies (top 50 companies), drug discovery companies, health care organisations, government R&D labs, CROs, genomics and biotech companies and IT companies, too.