Odisha to spend Rs 5,000 crore in IT sector: Patnaik

Odisha would spend around Rs 5,000 crore on IT in the next five years to provide services through electronic mode and entire Bhubaneswar would be made a WiFi-enabled city, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said today.
"As per the ICT (information and communication technology) Policy, every department will now earmark two per cent of its annual plan budget or one per cent of its overall budget, whichever is higher for IT spending so as to provide services through electronic mode," Patnaik said.
In the process, the state government would spend around Rs 5,000 crore from its budget in the next five years for IT or IT enabled services and ESDM (Electronic System Design and Manufacturing), he said, after inaugurating the new IT block of Tech Mahindra here.

To start with, Bhubaneswar city would be made WiFi enabled and Software Technology Park of India here has been engaged as a consultant, he said.
IT is at the top of the state government's agenda and the state government has taken a range of initiatives to accomplish this mission.
"Bhubaneswar has made good progress in IT SEZ sector too. In order to promote such industries, IT special economic zones are established at Info-city and Info-valley in Bhubaneswar. The state government is also setting up a green field electronics manufacturing cluster within Info-valley," he said.
Patnaik claimed that Odisha was the first state to have signed an MoU with TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs), Silicon Valley, USA to attract foreign investment under ESDM sector in the EMC.

The state government, he said, has put in place a new industry friendly ICT Policy-2014 through which efforts are on to make Odisha the preferred IT destination for IT/ITES/ESDM.