Thursday, March 05, 2009

IDC REPORT ON IT INVESTMENT SOON

Jayajit Dash, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar
Business Standard

IL&FS Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDC) expects to submit its final report on the proposed Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) in Orissa by the end of this month.

IL&FS-IDC had submitted the draft report to the Orissa government on the proposed ITIR region last month and it has been approved by the state government.

“We are now working on the final report which would assess the total investment on this region including the investment on external infrastructure like water, power supply and roads. IL&FS-IDC expects to submit the final report by the end of this month”, an official of IL&FS-IDC told Business Standard.

The ITIR in Orissa would be developed on an area of 40 sq km (around 10,000 acres) between Khandagiri and Barang area on the outskirts of the city. The area identified for the ITIR region involves government land spread over 50 odd villages and no private land needs to be acquired.

The ITIR region in the state is expected to be fully operational by 2020. The Infocity-II project being planned by the state IT department on around 500 acres of land between Bhubaneswar and Khurda would be a part of the ITIR.

The ITIR would be developed in two phases out of which 20 per cent of the investment would be committed for the first phase while the balance 80 per cent of the investment for the project will be made in the second phase.

According to the draft report prepared by IL&FS-IDC, 40 per cent of the area of the ITIR would be earmarked for the processing units of information technology (IT) and ITes sectors (IT enabled services) as well as electronics and hardware manufacturing units.

The remaining 60 per cent of the area in the region would be devoted to the non-processing facilities like research and development centre, technological institutes of national and international repute, a central business district, an integrated township comprising social infrastructure facilities like schools, hospitals and shopping malls and external infrastructure like roads.

The ITIR would be developed on the public-private partnership (PPP) mode. While the Centre would offer infrastructure facilities in the form of road and airport connectivity to the region, the IT and ITes players would be roped in as anchor tenants for the region.

0 comments: