Telangana mulls technology bank

The Technology Development Bank would provide seed fund to budding entrepreneurs to float companies in and around Hyderabad

The Telangana government is contemplating setting up a Technology Development Bank (TDB) to nurture entrepreneurship in both hardware and software sectors in the state, according to Panchayat Raj and Information Technology (IT) minister KT Rama Rao.

“Our IT department is actively looking at this propsosal and is currently working out the modalities. Once materilised, the TDB will provide seed fund to budding entrepreneurs to float companies in and around Hyderabad,” he said after formally inaugurating the two-day India Gadget Expo here on Thursday.

Stating that the world at large was looking at Hyderabad with a lot of interest and intent to invest in Telangana, Rao said his ministry was in the process of establishing two advanced electronics manufacturing clusters on around 700 acre in Maheshwaram mandal on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

“The Centre has already accorded its approval for these clusters with an assurance to provide 50 per cent of the funds on its behalf. While we are already seeing some local interest, we are also looking at global gadgets and consumer electronics players to consider setting up their units here,” he said, adding his government was gearing up to bring out a proper hardware policy in the coming few weeks.

Rao said while Hyderabad had been able to nurture the required talent in the area of electronics design and manufacturing through various training academies, a proposal is on the drawing board stage that envisaged consortiums, formed by software companies, adopting engineering colleges to churn out industry-ready professional.

“To promote entrepreneurship, we are also in the process of establishing the country’s largest incubation centre within the IIIT-Hyderabad campus. With over 100,000 sft of incubation space, the centre will be up and running in the next 6-7 months,” he said.

JA Chowdary, chairman of steering council, India Gadget Expo, requested the state government to provide common and centralised characterisation, validation and testing facilities for chip design to make Telangana a hardware hub.