DQ Entertainment to start operations in West Bengal

Kolkata, Aug 6 (IANS) Animation company DQ Entertainment will shortly start operations in West Bengal, Information Technology (IT) Minister Debesh Das said here Wednesday.

'India's best gaming and multimedia company has come to West Bengal and will start operations soon,' he said on the sidelines of ICT East, a seminar on the state's IT sector, organised by industry lobby Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the state government.

DQ Entertainment develops and distributes 2D traditional animation, Flash, 3D gaming art and animation.

It has set up its unit in Salt Lake, where Kolkata's IT hub is located.

Das said though the country's IT growth rate plummetted in the last fiscal to 29 percent from 32 percent the previous year, West Bengal maintained its growth rate at 45-46 percent during the same period, and was likely to maintain it this fiscal.

Kiran Karnik, former president of National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), the industry forum, said he was hopeful of West Bengal's growth as an IT destination.

'In the east, I find West Bengal, in particular, is very well positioned,' he said.

Regarding the Indian IT industry, Karnik said the country should now concentrate more on security software development because it had a huge international market.

India has exported IT and IT-enabled Services worth $40 billion last fiscal and hopes to achieve a target of $60 billion by 2010-end.

CII signed an agreement with Bengal Engineering and Science University and West Bengal University of Technology to impart soft skills to students of these universities.