State Chief Secretary A P Muthusamy signed the MoU with WorldTel's Chairman Sam Pitroda in the presence of the Chief Minister M Karunanidhi.

In the first phase, 1,000 Internet centres would be set up throughout the State. Chief Minister M Karunanidhi told mediapersons at the Secretariat, after the MoU was signed, that with the establishment of the centres, villages and towns would be linked with each other and with the rest of the world.

The state is the first to embark on this new venture, Karunanidhi said, adding, that it was a major step towards mass application of Information Technology and a major initiative to take Tamil Nadu to the 21st century.

To be set up at a cost of Rs 240 crore, the entire investment and funding of this project would be by WorldTel while the State government's role would be that of afacilitator.

The centres would enable the people of Tamil Nadu affordable access to information and communication facilities. This would essentially be a public access centre given on franchise. The centres would have from two to 20 personal computers which can be utilised by the public on payment of normal fee. In addition to this, it will also have other business services like fax, public call office (PCO), photo copying, e-mail and e-commerce.

The Community Internet centres would greatly help the State in the dissemination of information relating to various programmes being implemented by the government in departments like Education, Health and Public Distribution.

It will provide information on school and college admission, health briefs, information relating to revenue, commercial taxes and registration departments. Copies of all Government Orders and other information would be freely available in these centres as well as various forms such as old age pension. The project, when fully implemented,would generate employment to around 50,000 persons in the State.

Karunanidhi said the government has planned to introduce computer science lessons in all schools adding that a high-power committee would be formed for Information and Technology which would have a separate Tamil wing.

Karunanidhi said the State would provide all help and cooperation for the new project. WorldTel Chairman Sam Pitroda, who was the then chairman of the Union Government's Communications Technology Mission, said Rs 10-15 lakh would be spent in the setting up of each centre adding that it would commence operations within a year.

WorldTel has been working in this project in Africa, Peru and Bangladesh. ``In order to make it accessible to the common man efforts have also been made to develop Tamil fonts simultaneously,'' he said.