The IT department of the Orissa government expects to come out with a new ICT (information and communication technology) policy, incorporating the best practices of IT-friendly states in the country by November this year.
The new state focused ICT policy is being formulated after a gap of five years.
Apart from including the best IT practices of states like Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and positioning Orissa as a favourable destination for IT investments, the new policy would also contain enabling measures for growth of IT SMEs (small and medium enterprises). “We are in the process of preparing the new ICT policy which would include the best IT practices of the IT friendly states in India and also have measures to facilitate growth of the local IT SMEs.The new ICT policy is expected to be readied by November this year”, a senior IT official told Business Standard.
The state IT department is yet to finalise the details of the policy, but we are taking suggestions from different stakeholders in the IT sector in this regard, he added.
This move assumes significance as the state had emerged as one of the attractive destinations for the IT sector.
While the top four IT companies of the country, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys Technologies, Wipro Technologies and Satyam Computers already have a presence in Orissa, other IT players like MindTree Consulting, Genpact, Zensar Technologies, Mumbai-based Raheja Corporation and Kolkata-based Apeejay Surrendra Group have also announced their projects in the state.
Besides, the state IT department is also going for the Infocity-II project which is to be developed on an area of over 500 acres at Janla on the outskirts of the city. The state government had made a budgetary allocation of Rs 150 crore for developing the external infrastructure for Infocity-II which is scheduled to be fully operational by the end of 2012.
It may be noted that new IT projects in the state are facing delay as the IT players were going slow on construction work due to the prevailing economic downturn which had hit their operations. The official pointed out that after the end of the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Orissa, the state IT department is planning to review the status of different IT projects.
