The one-month-old Akhilesh Yadav government has started to work on its pre-poll promise to promote the information technology (IT) sector in the state, with Uttar Pradesh mulling a 100-acre ‘IT City’ in Lucknow.
The land has been identified on the outskirts of the state capital for the ‘IT City’, which would boast of modern infrastructure.
The massive IT infrastructure would come up on UP State Industrial Development Corporation (UPSIDC) land on the Lucknow-Sultanpur highway.
“It will offer all the facilities to IT companies, including hotels, dedicated power and direct connectivity to the airport,” UP Infrastructure and Industrial Development Commissioner (IIDC) Anil Kumar Gupta told Business Standard.
The proposal is likely to be presented before the state chief secretary later this week.
Meanwhile, the state government had already selected KPMG for drafting the new IT Policy, which is likely to be submitted by April 30.
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Later, stakeholders’ consultations would be held for a month, before the IT policy could be finalised. The government wants to develop Lucknow and Agra as IT hubs and boost the IT/IT Enabled Services (ITeS) and electronics sector in the state.
“We will confer with stakeholders and IT industry so that our policy is attuned with modern times, as IT landscape changes fast,” he added. The proposal of the ‘IT City’ is expected to be placed before the state Cabinet for approval by May end.
Gupta informed the land would be cheaper in ‘IT City’ than Lucknow Industrial Development Authority (LIDA) as it was already owned by government.
LIDA had also proposed a 25-acre IT Park in Lucknow, wherein land was to be acquired from farmers. It was proposed near the Lucknow airport.
Earlier, LIDA plans had hit the roadblock due to land acquisition issues putting on quandary its plan to acquire 2,000 acres in the first phase along the Lucknow-Kanpur highway.
In a recent conference of IT companies under the aegis of Association of Knowledge Workers, Lucknow (AKWL) here, Gupta had admitted that IT companies were sceptical of investing in UP due to absence of any significant project taking off other than the National Capital Region (NCR) in recent past.
However, he claimed things were moving very fast under the leadership of dynamic and IT-savvy chief minister and projects would start taking off in another two months’ time.
During 2010-11, the state’s IT exports clocked about Rs 11,000 crore and this year, it is likely to touch Rs 14,000 crore. It is lesser known that UP was once among the country’s top three IT exporters.