Ponnala reviews IT promotion activities

Hyderabad, Feb 11 (INN): Information Technology Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah on Tuesday reviewed the IT promotion activities with APIIC MD Jayesh Ranjan and other senior officials in the presence of ITE&C Secretary Sanjay Jaju.

During the meeting, several major decisions have been taken. A proposal for creation of Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) in Visakhapatnam Metropolitan area comprising IT/ITES/Electronic Hardware Clusters in an area of 10,995 acres (44.50 sq.kms) out of which the processing area coming to 4,568.99 acres is under active consideration. It has been proposed to create external and internal infrastructure in the proposed ITIR area in the form of provision of roads, water supply, electricity transmission and generation, sewerage and solid waste management, Metro Rail, widening of connectivity to National Highway, creation of Rapid Transport System, etc., with an estimated cost of Rs.5,504 crores towards creation of internal infrastructure and Rs.19,706 crores towards external infrastructure.The financial assistance for external infrastructure provision will be sought from GoI.

The Visakhapatnam ITIR will be implemented over a period of next 25 years in two phases and after commissioning, the ITIR is expected to generate an IT employment of 4.28 lakh people directly and 17.11 lakh people indirectly. The IT companies are expected to make an investment of Rs.45,005 crores in the Visakhapatnam ITIR besides generating a revenues of Rs.37,353 crores when it is fully operational by 2038.

At present, Visakhapatnam is a promising Tier-II location in the State creating an IT employment of 16,988 with an annual turnover of Rs.1,445 crores.

Further, creation of Visakhapatnam ITIR will not only propel the IT/ITES/Electronic Hardware sector in the years to come, but also augment the standard of living and socio economic development of citizen of the Visakhapatnam region.

The progress of construction of IT Incubation Towers at Kakinada, Warangal and Tirupati are in advanced stage and will be completed by March, 2014. Visakhapatnam Tower will be ready by June, 2014. In all these Towers, an area of about 2000 sq.ft will be earmarked for startup and SME companies and will be developed as a plug & play facility with interiors, cabling, networking facility, partitions, etc.

During the meeting it has been decided to lay the foundation stone for IT incubation centre in Karimnager on 16th February.

With regard to the development of GAME Park lay out and construction of GAME Tower at Raidurg, the APIIC will be giving tender notification for undertaking the construction work of GAME Tower in the next 15 days. The interior work in STPI Incubation Centre for providing plug & play office space to the GAME Companies has commenced and is expected to be completed in next two months.

Several other issues related to the different projects were also discussed during the meeting.