The decks have been cleared for the development of the IT investment region in the state as IL&FS-Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDC) has submitted the final report on the project to the state government.
IL&FS-IDC had earlier submitted its draft report to the state government in February this year. However, the project had to be reworked by IL&FS-IDC in the wake of the Centre’s proposal to develop an airport in the same area.
Sources close to the development said, the plan to develop the airport has been okayed by the state government and the proposed airport would be a part of the IT investment region.
The airport will come up on an area of about 2,300 acres close to the site of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Orissa which is being set up over 835 acres of land at Jatni, about 20 km from the city.
“The state government now needs to expedite the process of sending the final report on the IT investment region to the Centre.
Other states like Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala have already submitted the final reports to the Centre on the ITIR”, added sources.
The IT investment region (ITIR) in Orissa will occupy an area of 40 sq km (around 10,000 acres) between Bhubaneswar and Khurda.
This ITIR project is expected to be fully operational by 2020.In the final project report, IL&FS-IDC had included among other things an airport, a global IT training centre, a bio-tech park and a science city spread over 350 acres.
The Infocity-II project being set up by the state government on over 600 acres of land at Janla on the outskirts of the city would also be a part of the IT investment region.
The ITIR would be developed in two phases out of which 20 per cent of the investment is committed for the first phase while the balance 80 per cent of the investment will come in the second phase.
The entire cost of the project is yet to be ascertained. While the Centre will provide external infrastructure for the project in the form of roads, the onus is on the state government to acquire land for the project.
According to the project plan of IL&FS-IDC, 40 per cent of the area of the ITIR would be earmarked for the processing units of information technology (IT) and ITes sectors (IT enabled services) as well as electronics and hardware manufacturing units.
The remaining 60 per cent of the area would be devoted to the non-processing facilities like research and development centre, technological institutes of national and international repute.
This apart there would be a central business district, an integrated township comprising social infrastructure facilities like schools, hospitals and shopping malls and external infrastructure like roads.
