Undeterred by the growing pressure from the United States, the Centre on Wednesday said it would develop India as a 'global hub' to enable the country become a 'great IT nation' with the new IT and Communication Minister Dayanidhi Maran unveiling a ten-point agenda for the sector.

"I shall make all endeavour to make India the world's hub for outsourcing skilled manpower in the IT sector," Maran said soon after assuming charge on Wednesday.

Asked about the ongoing US opposition to outsourcing, Maran said: "There is already a committee chaired by finance minister to look into it and handle outsourcing issues."

• India and Outsourcing: Complete Coverage

His other priorities include expediting convergence of technologies, higher usage of personal computers, national Internet exchange and Indian domain name.

Sidestepping the suggestions of I&B Minister Jaipal Reddy for a separate broadcast regulator at a time of convergence, he said: "Convergence Bill has to be reintroduced. We will be taking into consideration interests of all the concerned parties."

"I can't say anything just like that," he said on whether he favoured separate regulators for telecom and broadcasting sectors, but emphasised that independence of regulator was top on his mind.

The minister who is also in charge of postal services said the Department of Post had to be modernized.

'Competition is good'

Maran said the pressure from large industrial houses in the telecom sector could be checked through competition, which would also benefit consumers.

"Competition is good. More the competition, better the results," he said when asked how he would keep pressures from large industrial houses like Reliance, Bharti or Tatas at bay.

Maran said he would follow the reforms process and make sure that reforms initiated by the previous NDA government were taken forward. Consumers were important and the focus of reforms should be to pass on the benefits to them, he said.

"Our interest is to make sure that we achieve more tele-density. How we achieve it, is what we have to look into," he said.

Maran said the country needed to grow beyond the current tele-density of seven and stressed on improvement in service quality.