As per the MoU, Tata IBM and the Andhra Pradesh government will initially identify five areas in which best practices and solutions will be identified or prototypes created within six months of the centre's operations.

The centre is looking at areas like electronic commerce, integrated forms processing systems, management of large shared databases like social security database, Internet-based applications, collaborative working, datawarehousing and datamining, distance learning and smart card-based applications and will choose the five areas from these.

It is understood that the Andhra Pradesh government is creating theelectronic governance concept centre so that it could serve as a think tank and resource institution with expertise on issues related to effective use of information technology in governance. In addition, the centre will also act as a major player resource in enabling the Andhra Pradesh government to more effectively play the role of lead state in the country in the use of IT in governance.

"This centre serves the deeply felt need for such an autonomous institution that acts as a think tank, as a showcase for best practices and as a mechanism to train apex policy makers involved in electronic government," Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu said. This institution will enable companies and state governments around the country to contribute to rapidly translating the concept of electronic government into a reality, he added.