Terming the first ever conference held here on Monday and Tuesday on Blockchain technology as a huge success, Andhra Pradesh IT Minister N Lokesh has said several fintech companies have committed themselves to starting operations here and several more are in the pipeline.
He was addressing the media here on Tuesday at the conclusion of the two-day conference. He said it was the target of the State government to generate one lakh jobs in the IT sector and two lakh jobs in electronics in the State by 2019. He said it was a realistic target.
He said five electronics clusters were coming up in the State - one in Visakhapatnam district, two in Tirupati, one in Anantapur and the fifth one at a place not yet decided. “Work has commenced on the four clusters but it will take sometime for the fifth one. Tirupati in particular will emerge as the major electronics centre,” he said.
Conduent facility He said “a New Jersey-based company, Conduent, is setting up a 5,000-seater facility here and another major company has agreed to set up centre here, generating 5,000 more jobs. However, the Cabinet has to approve the second project and later the name of the company will be announced.”
He said six companies had participated and won awards in the various contests conducted on the occasion and “all those companies and 19 more are setting up facilities here.”
He said earnest efforts were being made to promote IT at Amaravati, the new capital, Tirupati and other places, but the focus would be on building up Visakhapatnam as the IT hub.
Opposition allegations Dismissing the allegations made by the Opposition parties in the State that he (State IT Minister and the son of the Chief Minister) was involved in the Vizag land scam, he said that “it has become a habit with them to shoot and scoot.
If they have proof, let them prove it. It is not proper to make wild allegations.”