West Bengal hopes hardware parks will attract investors

The state government would like West Bengal to feature prominently on the hardware map of the country. "Bengal intends to be the top hardware manufacture state in India by 2010," explained Manabendra Mukherjee, state minister, at a gathering on the occasion of inauguration of JDS House in the city today.

He said plans were being finalised to set up four hardware technology parks in the state "" two of which would be set up in and around Kolkata while the other two would be in Siliguri and Durgapur.

"Facilities required for hardware manufacturing units are vastly different from the ones required by software firms so the state has to find land at different locations," he added.

"To put West Bengal on the hardware map of the country, the state needs companies which fare among the top twenty corporate in the segment," the minister said.

The state would provide the infrastructure as well as fulfill other requirement, Mukherjee said. Location of the hardware parks in the city would be finalised by end of 2004.

Somnath Chatterjee, speaker Lok Sabha who was present at the occasion, said West Bengal aimed to be at the top position in the country in the software segment 10 years from now, accounting for 20 per cent of total software revenues.