The Andhra Pradesh Government will shortly announce its IT policy, probably within a week or ten days, to attract large-scale investment into the sector and is also planning to develop Visakhapatnam as an IT Investment Region (ITIR), according to IT Minister, P. Raghunatha Reddy.

After visiting the IT parks at Rushikonda here, the minister was speaking to industry representatives and the media here on Tuesday.

Single window clearance

He said single window clearance woud be given for IT units and the new units would get clearances within a month or at least a provisional clearance would be given to enable them to start operations.

He said after the bifurcation and the loss of Hyderabad, the IT sector would have to begin almost from the scratch in the successor state of AP.

"Telangana has Rs 55,000 crore worth of IT exports and we have only Rs 1,700 crore from AP, most of them from Visakhapatnam. So we have to build afresh and Visakhapatnam would be the most important centre. We will develop it as an ITIR and promote Brand Vizag. Our Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, developed Hyderabad and built it up as an IT brand. Under his leadership, we will do the same here," he said and added that Vijayawada, Kakinada, Tirupati and other centres would also be developed as IT centres.

Denotifying IT SEZs

Referring to some of the issues, he said there was a demand from the local IT industry to denotify some of the IT SEZs and it would be seriously considered and appropriate action would be taken.

He said three companies - Wipro, Sameer and Tech Mahindra - had sought land in Visakhapatnam for new IT units or expansion of their activities. It would be considered by the State Cabinet and a decision would be taken soon.

IT incubation centre

He said an IT incubation centre was being set up here at a cost of Rs 23 crore and it would be ready by August. It would be inaugurated by the Chief Minister. It would be of great help to the smaller IT companies.

"We are committed to promoting the IT sector in the State in right earnest and we will resolve the long-pending issues and pave the way for the growth of the industry," he added.

Later, in an interaction session with the industry, Sanjay Jaju, State IT Secretary, said a committee had been constituted to take up the problems faced by the IT industry and the long-pending issues would be resolved soon. Infrastructure would be developed and the status of Industrial Area Local Authority (IALA) would be given to the IT SEZs at Rushikonda to solve some of the problems relating to basic amenities.

J S V Prasad, Principal Secretary (Industries), said a world-class convention centre would be set up here with a five-star hotel and exhibition facilities for the benefit of the IT sector, as in Madapur (Hyderabad). He said clusters of small IT companies could be set up in the State and a finishing school would also be set up.

J Satyanarayana, IT adviser to the State Government, said a holistic approach would be adopted for promoting the sector in the State and the target was to generate 5 lakh additional jobs in the sector by 2020.

Denotification of some of the IT SEZs, better infrastructure, better bandwidth, quality and uninterrupted power supply, and more incentives were some of the demands made by the representatives of the industry.

sarma.rs@thehindu.co.in

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