Odisha to spend Rs 5000 cr on IT, ESDM sectors in 5 yrs

Want Center to expedite approval for establishment of IT investment region (ITIR) in Odisha

Aiming to position Bhubaneswar as one of the leading IT destinations among tier-II cities, the state government has lined up an investment of Rs 5000 crore in IT and ESDM (electronics system design and manufacturing) sectors in the next five years.

The state IT minister Pranab Prakash Das unveiled this investment plan at a conference of IT ministers and IT secretaries in New Delhi today.

“A target to achieve a gross ICT (information & communication technology) turnover of $ 4 billion, direct employment of 60,000 professionals, attract 10 leading IT/ITes & five leading ESDM companies to the state, create a built-up space of six million sq feet and a developed land bank of 2000 acres by 2020 has been given in our ICT policy. Further as per the policy, every government department will now earmark two per cent of their annual plan budget or one per cent of their overall budget (whichever is higher) for IT spending so as to provide services through electronic mode”, Das said at the conference.

He urged the Union IT minister to expedite approval for establishment of IT investment region (ITIR) in Odisha.

The ITIR project would cover an area of around 10210 acres (41.32 sq km) at a distance of 15 km south of Bhubaneswar. The project will generate job opportunities for approximately 230,000 people in IT/ ITes and ESDM sectors. The detailed project report on the ITIR submitted by the state government has been cleared by a high-power committee under the chairmanship of Cabinet Secretary, Government of India, held on July 6, 2012. In order to give a boost to the sector, the minister said, IT Special Economic Zones (SEZ) have been established at Infocity and Infovalley in Bhubaneswar.

The Infovally project covers an area of around 613 acres. Out of this, 262.52 acres have been notified as IT SEZ where Infosys has set up its second development centre in the city and 215 acres as ESDM Park.Odisha is the only state in eastern India where all four leading IT companies like TCS, Infosys, Wipro and Tech Mahindra have set up their development centres, he said.

On e-governance initiatives taken up by the state government, the minister said, under National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), the State wide Area Network (SWAN) and the State Data Centre (SDC) have been operational since 2010-11. The government is connecting all the offices with dedicated network through horizontal connectivity project under SWAN. The connectivity would be extended up to gram panchayat level through National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) over the next two years.