Govt earmarks Rs 6500 crore for IT spends: Sources

The Govt's tech advisory group has earmarked Rs 6500 crore for IT spends, a source told. The Finance Minister had set up this group, to be headed by Nandan Nilekani, for effective technological implementation. The group aims to introduce up to 10 IT contracts in financial year 2010-11. The group will take decisions on projects such as the Unique ID project. Recently it was learnt that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had issued the request for quotation (RFQ) for its first IT contract for application development services. Forty-two vendors are said to have submitted their bids for the unique id project. The bids range between Rs 500 crore to Rs 725 crore, the sources had told CNBC-TV18, adding that Wipro and HCL were among the lowest bidders, while Capgemini, Infosys, Polaris and IBM were among the highest bidders. Education IT companies like Aptech and NIIT were also believed to have placed their bids.