Tamil Nadu government hopes to bag Bio-IT park

The Tamil Nadu government hopes to promote a Bio-IT Park near Chennai soon in collaboration with the central government, said D Rajendran, secretary to Tamil Nadu government's Industries Department, on Tuesday.

The idea was to set up the park over 100 acres, said Rajendran on the sidelines of a meeting organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

The proposal for a Bio-IT Park was first mooted by the central government's Department of Information Technology.

Bio-IT Park is meant to provide the right setting to fuse Information Technology (IT) with Life Science. The park would be a geographical cluster of IT and life science companies. Rajendran said other than Tamil Nadu, four other states have made a pitch for the park.

Rajendran declined to disclose the investment required for the park because the details had not yet been worked out. However, when the concept was first floated by the central government in 2004, it was estimated that the park would need an initial outlay of about Rs 100 crore.

Rajendran said the concept included the establishment of an incubator facility within the park.

The promoters of the park (state and central governments, among others) would provide infrastructure for research and development in the incubator. When an entrepreneur's idea crossed a relevant milestone in the incubator, space would be given in the park to execute the project.

The Tamil Nadu government's proposal envisages the use of existing infrastructure in the state to complement the incubator's facilities.

The state government has promoted a standalone biotech park with common lab infrastructure.

Rajendran said that the lab infrastructure in the state government's biotech park could be used by companies in the Bio-IT Park. Therefore, investment into the incubator could focus on the areas left out by the state government's biotech park.