Coimbatore IT park gets SEZ status

The Union government on Saturday granted the special economic zone (SEZ) status for the proposed information technology (IT) park in Coimbatore, according to C Umashankar, managing director, Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (Elcot).

Addressing a press conference, he said that the IT park, pending for a long time, would come up soon with the government starting the clearance process.

"Elcot has taken over nearly 11.65 hectares (29 acres) of land near the Coimbatore Medical College campus and floated a special purpose vehicle (SPV) "� Elcot IT Parks Limited. Only the issue of identifying a partner remains," he added.

Details such as the total built-up area, the number of partners and the means of funding are still being worked out.

Elcot, along with the officials of the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (Tidco) and the state's IT secretary, have identified three models for the park and discussed the methodology of setting up the park, according to Umashankar. He said that it would be a joint initiative with private participation.

Bangalore-based IT major Wipro has already shown expression of interest (EoI) for setting up its office on 12 acres of land in the proposed park.

To expedite work, Elcot, the nodal agency for promoting the park, has restricted its stake to just 11 per cent, unlike its usual 29 per cent stake.

"If we hold a higher stake, we have to comply with government norms and procedures which would delay the progress. Hence, we have minimised our stake and want the industry to participate."

"If private players take active part in setting up of the park, it would become operational within one year. But if Elcot takes up the job, it could take more than 30 months." However, he did not rule out the possibility of Elcot increasing its stake in future.

Speaking on the occasion, Neeraj Mittal, district collector, said that the major reason for the delay was access route to the site. "We are studying the possibility for improving the capacity of the Avinashi Road to ease the traffic on the arterial road," he said.

The district administration has asked the highways department and Coimbatore corporation to look into the issue.