State to review IT projects

The Orissa information technology (IT) department will review the progress of the ongoing and the upcoming IT projects of the state in a meeting scheduled for January 6.

“At the meeting, we will review the status of construction work of the existing IT players and also that of projects announced by MindTree and Genpact who have announced their development centres in the state”, Pradipta K Mohapatra, the state IT secretary told Business Standard.

Mohapatra indicated that the IT players had deferred their construction work as they were awaiting the new building norms of the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA), adding, “Now that the BDA has come out with its new building norms, the IT players would be keen to kick off their construction work.”

The new building norms of BDA which focuses on vertical growth and allows multi-level parking are expected to benefit the companies in the IT and ITes (IT enabled services) sectors.

The fresh building norms of BDA have done away with the building restrictions, except in some strategic zones and the new norms have linked the height of buildings to the plot size and width of the road which the plot abuts. According to the new BDA norms, the maximum height of a building shall not exceed one and a half times the width of the road which the plot abuts.

Apart from the new building regulations of BDA, the new SEZ (special economic zone) policy being formulated by the Orissa government is also set to benefit the IT companies.

“The Orissa government is in the process of finalising a new SEZ policy which will incorporate the best practices of other investor friendly states in the country like Gujarat, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The policy will also include IT SEZs and in the IT SEZs, 50 per cent of the area will be earmarked for manufacturing and the remaining 50 per cent for non-manufacturing purposes”, said Mohapatra.

Asked on the status of the proposed Investment Technology Investment Region (ITIR) in Orissa, he said, “IL&FS Infrastructure Development Corporation is expected to submit its report to the Orissa Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation on the proposed ITIR in the state by the second week of next month.”