Jayajit Dash, Kolkata/Bhubaneswar
Business Standard
The proposed Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) in Orissa which was to be developed on an area of 40 sq km (about 10,000 acres) between Bhubaneswar and Khurda was now being redesigned in the wake of the Centre’s proposal to develop an airport in the region.
The airport was to be developed on an area of about 2,300 acres close to the site of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Orissa which is being developed over 835 acres of land at Jatni, about 20 km from the city.
Sources close to the development said that IL&FS- Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDC) which was in the process of preparing the final report on the ITIR region in the state was now asked to rework the project in the light of the proposal to develop an airport in the region. If the airport comes up in the region, then the area earmarked for the ITIR in the state would have be to be squeezed by about 6-7 sq km.
The proposed airport is set to give a big boost to the ITIR project. Earlier, IL&FS-IDC had submitted its draft report to the Orissa government on the ITIR in February this year and the report was approved by the state government. However, IL&FS-IDC now had to rework the area of the project and it is in the process of preparing a revised report which it expected to complete within two weeks.
IL&FS-IDC would submit the final report on the ITIR to the newly formed government in Orissa following the end of the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in the state. The investment on the ITIR project could be known after the submission of the final report by IL&FS-IDC. The ITIR in Orissa was to be developed on an area of 40 sq km (around 10,000 acres) between Khandagiri area in the city and Barang 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 percent of the investment would be committed for the first phase while the balance 80 percent of the investment for the project will be in the second phase.
According to the draft report prepared by IL&FS-IDC, 40 percent 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 percent 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.
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