BANGALORE: The Karnataka government has belatedly recognized that there is a disconnect between itself and the local IT industry, which has led to some brand erosion for the highly successful industry both within the country and overseas.

The state is setting up a special IT Committee with the mandate to provide fresh impetus to the technology industry . The core committee will comprise of industry leaders like BV Naidu, former director of STPI and now involved in a private venture that supports startups, T V Mohandas Pai, former director in Infosys Technologies, Sudip Banerjee, former CEO of L&T Infotech and Sanjay Nayak, CEO of Tejas Networks.

The committee, which will work in coordination with the state IT department, will draw up a 5-year plan to improve brand IT Karnataka across the country and across customer geographies like the US and Europe. "The committee will also draw plans to double the state's IT exports from Rs 1,35,000 crore in 2011-12 to Rs 2,70,000 crore by 2017," an official close to the government said.

Karnataka previously had a Vision Group on IT headed by Infosys Technologies founder N R Narayana Murthy. The Group was active for some years, but in more recent times, little has been heard of it. It has been said that industry members in the Group were put off by the governments' seeming lack of interest in the sector.

The new entity will also focus on employment generation and inclusive growth. Currently, around 900,000 people are employed in the tech sector and the target is to create another 600,000 jobs in the next five years.

The committee will work to improve the infrastructure in secondary cities so that the industry can be expanded across the state.

"A lot more people can be employed and touched by the IT growth story of the state if more companies are willing to expand to smaller towns. Bangalore has the second largest techie concentration outside of the Silicon Valley; but we are yet to see that real spirit of entrepreneurship happening here. So entrepreneur breeding will be another focus area of the committee," the official said.