The Orissa IT department has got its act together to expedite the Infocity-II project to be developed over 500 acres of land at Janla on the outskirts of the city.
The global economic meltdown had slackened demand for IT projects. But with the sign of recovery in sight, the state government is gearing up to keep the infrastructure of Infocity-II ready to welcome any IT firm keen to set up its shop in the city.
Towards this objective, the state IT department has now planned to go for a four-lane approach road connecting the Infocity-II project with the National Highway.
“We are committed to provide external infrastructure like roads, water and electricity for the Infocity-II project. The state IT department has engaged a consultant which is undertaking a survey work on the proposed four-lane approach road and the private land that needs to be acquired for the purpose”, an official source told Business Standard.
Earlier, the state government had sanctioned Rs 150 crore for developing external infrastructure for the project like approach road, electricity and water.
While land acquisition for the Infocity-II project is already over, the construction of the boundary wall is underway. The state government is on the look out for anchor tenants for the project.
Though IT heavyweights like Infosys Technologies and Wipro Technologies had evinced interest in taking possession of land within the Infocity-II region, they were non-committal on their expansion plans due to the prevailing slowdown.
As per the estimates of the Orissa IT department, the Infocity-II project is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2012 and the project is set to attract investments worth Rs 4,000 crore from IT ad ITes (IT enabled services) companies.
The proposed Infocity-II project will generate direct and indirect employment for about four lakh people in the information technology (IT) and ITes sectors.
Presently, more than 18,000 professionals are engaged in the IT sector in the state while the ITes sector had a workforce of over 15,000.
The Infocity-II project would be a part of the proposed IT investment region in the state. The IT investment region (ITIR) in Orissa was to be developed on an area of 40 sq km (around 10,000 acres) between Bhubaneswar and Khurda.
The ITIR project in the state is expected to be fully operational by 2020.
Apart from its focus on the Infocity-II project, the state IT department is also keen to expedite the commissioning of the second tower of the Orissa Computer Application Centre (OCAC) in the city at an investment of Rs 30 crore.
The proposed facility is being developed exclusively for IT and ITes (information technology enabled services) companies and it is scheduled to be operational by early 2010.
This tower will have a total built-up space of about 2 lakh sq ft and it is being developed by the Orissa Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO).
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