Gitex Hyderabad draws good response

The Andhra Pradesh government yesterday signed two MoUs with L&T Infocity and Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) for setting up infrastructure and R&D lab facilities at Hi-Tech City and Hardware Park respectively.

The MoUs were entered into on the concluding day of three-day GITEX exhibition which registered more than 6000 foot falls in the last three days.

L&T Infocity would be allotted 14.09 acres to develop approximately 10 lakh sq ft of multi-tenanted buildings with world class infrastructure for IT/ITES firms with an investment of over Rs 200 crore at Hi-Tec City here.

Though scheduled to be completed over the next 7 years, it would be completed in three years time due to the actual demand, according to the promoters.

Ajay Sawhney, the secretary (IT), and R Sridharan, the chief operating officer of L&T Infocity, signed the MoU as part of the original joint venture agreement between Larsen &Toubro and AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation(APIIC) 1996.

Under this venture, the initial two phases "� Cyber towers and Cyber Gateway "� were developed with around Rs 400 crore investment. The first phase of the project, Cyber Pearl, a 5 lakh sq feet facility with an investment of Rs 150 crore, is expected to be operational by March 2004.

C-DAC would be allotted two acres of land at the Hardware Park near the proposed international airport at Shamshabad. The site is meant for establishing an R&D laboratory to undertake activities in grid computing, hardware design center, embedded systems design and mixed signal design solutions and e-security.

N Sarath Chandra Babu, the center head of C-DAC, Hyderabad, signed the MoU with Ajay Sawhney. Babu said that the lab facility, to be established in two years, would take up research about attacks, new viruses besides activities on design and IT solutions front.

Though the size of investments to be made on this project was not spelt out, the facility will begin its work with around 30 employees and would be grown to a stage where 100 people would be deployed in due course of time.

An Institute of Robotics with the technological support of Carnegie Mellon University, US, would soon be coming up at IIIT centre here to bring advanced research programmes in cutting edge technologies, Ajay Sawhney said after the signing of MoUs at GITEX exhibition.

The third edition of GITEX received better response than last year not only in terms of participation of exhibitors, but also in terms of increase in the number of visitors.

Over 6000 people reportedly visited the exhibition with several business enquiries getting to the logical end. The 30 per cent subsidy for AP companies on space cost at Gitex also gave a big boost to the exhibition. The government has also announced sales tax exemption from the next year onwards.