National water portal soon: Sam Pitroda

A national water portal is being developed to facilitate exchange of database and information on all matters related to water, chairman of the National Knowledge Commission, Sam Pitroda said in Bangalore on Thursday.

Addressing the 'Infovision 2006 Knowledge Summit' through videoconferencing from Chicago, he said the public portal is being developed by NKC member and Infosys CEO Nandan M Nilekani and his family through their foundation.

"We want to create a national portal on energy, environment, education, citizen's rights and literacy. These are some of the key areas related to access to knowledge," he told the event, which was

organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Pitroda said NKC is looking at how quickly a national knowledge network -- a high-bandwidth, high-capacity virtual highway -- can be established connecting all universities, libraries, medical institutions, science and technology labs and research and development units across the country.

He said the NKC has already reviewed the excess capacity available with telecom players like BSNL, Bharti, Reliance and Tata in this regard.

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