The Karnataka government has initiated the process of creating the third information technology (IT) hub in Bangalore city near its new airport at Devanahalli with an investment of Rs 100,000 crore.
Katta Subramanya Naidu, Karnataka’s minister for excise, information, IT and BT, said the state government has already identified land for the development of Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) that has been cleared by the central government.
“We had a meeting with the government of India officials recently in Bangalore. We gave green signal for the project. They (central government) visited the spot (identified land) and have accepted it. Now our officials are proceeding with the land acquisition,” he said on Wednesday on the sidelines of the BangaloreIT.biz, the IT event hosted in Bangalore every year.
The city already has two technology parks located in south and southeast — Electronic City, and International Tech Park Ltd. The new hub will come up in the northeast part of the city.
The minister said the state government will soon begin the process of acquiring land for developing the new software and hardware hub, which would be built over an area of 10,000 acres, or 50 square kilometres.
Naidu said the IT park would be developed through the public-private partnership (PPP) model, where government will invite private investment in the project. The government had not yet zeroed in on any partners yet. The state government’s share in the total project cost will be very small.
The minister expects the ITIR to be functional by mid-2010 and is not envisaging any roadblocks in the acquisition of land.
“For land acquisition, we will pursue the landlords. In this area (Devanahalli), there is dry land and no wet land. We will not face any problems in getting that land,” Naidu said.
If all goes as Naidu claims then Bangalore would be first city with an ITIR. The proposal to create ITIRs across the India’s major technology destinations was approved by the central government early last year.
Its objective was to build world-class infrastructure to boost growth of IT/BPO and electronic hardware manufacturing. The units in ITIR would also enjoy investor-friendly policies.
Naidu’s announcement was met with mixed reactions from the industry.
Rostow Ravanan, chief financial officer of MindTree Ltd, said the minister’s statement should be backed with details.
“Our conceptualisation is always good, it is the implementation where we suffer. Also, the claim that the ITIR would be functional by mid-2010 seems a bit far-fetched but if the project takes off it would be good for city which needs physical infrastructure desperately,” he said.
Ravanan said ITIR would benefit smaller IT firms more than the larger companies.
Sachin Mulay, general manager — branding and communication — Wipro Ltd, said a third IT hub was welcome but wants it to be opened up to new and sustainable technology companies like eco-energy firms.
The third-largest IT company’s senior executives feel that the ITIR should be developed on the lines of the Magarpatta township in Pune, which operates on the premise of walk to work.“They government should adopt the walk-to-work concept, where the ITIR should be developed as a satellite city with not just corporate infrastructure but also social infrastructure,” Mulay said.
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