WB govt okays new IT policy; to revive govt-owned tea gardens

A new incentive scheme for IT companies would be prepared within 15 days as part of the new IT policy and would be submitted to a committee set up for the purpose, State Industry Minister Partha Chatterjee told reporters after a meeting of the cabinet committee on industry and infrastructure.

Chatterjee said the cabinet committee also approved a proposal for providing 15 acres to ITC Infotech to set up its project at Rajarhat in the northern outskirts of the city.

The price of the land would be decided after dicussion between the IT secretary and the company officials and if necessary with the Chief Secretary Samar Ghosh.

After coming to power last year, the government had constituted an IT expert panel on software and hardware with Infosys chairman emeritus N R Narayana Murthy as its chief mentor and Sam Pitroda as chairman.

Chatterjee said an Institute of Information Technology would be set up at Kalyani with Coal India, JSW and Rolta having submitted their expression of interest for the project.

This project would be taken up at 'no loss and no profit basis' as part of the Centre's policy, he added.

The cabinet committee meeting also decided to revive five government-owned tea gardens in north Bengal under joint venture scheme as the state government was incurring an expenditure of Rs 13 crore.

"Whatever we do with regard to revival, we will do it after taking care of the interest of the existing workers in the tea garden," he said.