Vijayawada: The capital city of Amaravati is all set to take its baby steps in attracting IT industry with eight small and midsize software companies deciding to kick-start their operations from a four-storeyed plug and play building at Autonagar in Vijayawada shortly.
The building will be inaugurated by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu soon. The companies are MSRCosmos, Adept IT Solutions, Horizon IT, Advance Software, Intellisoft, Intelli Asia, Timesquare IT and Accel IT. They could hire about 500 IT professionals and some of them could be fresh engineering graduates.
“Öur relentless efforts in creating a proper IT ecosystem through innovative policy initiatives and providing best of accommodation is bearing fruits now,” Dr. Ravi Kumar Vemuru, Advisor to AP Government, Non-Resident Telugu Affairs and Investments and CEO, AP Non-Resident Telugus Society (APNRT), told The Hindu on Tuesday. Ït could be treated as a prelude to the arrival of more such companies to Amaravati where space has been earmarked for a 27-storeyed IT Tower. Not just small and medium companies but big ones like Microsoft and HCL have shown interest, thanks to some aggressive promotion by the Chief Minister. “The head count when more companies are set up could go upto 5000 and this could happen by this year-end.”
The Andhra Pradesh Government’s two initiatives have been well received by the NRTs — 50% of rent for three years and subsidy of ₹1 lakh for every job created till 2020, he said. “We want to develop Visakhapatnam, Amaravati and Tirupati as IT hubs. It is not an easy task getting these companies to a place that is starting from the scratch unlike the well-established Hyderabad or Bengaluru.”
With more and more NRT and other companies willing to set up shop here, “we are now concentrating on making more and more engineering students employable by honing the right kind of skills and developing communication abilities in them,” Dr. Ravi said.
A Bengaluru-based training institute has been roped in to develop the communication abilities of the final year students.
As part of these efforts, the APNRT has taken up a massive awareness programme along with the engineering colleges in each district, where representatives of the IT and other companies spell out their requirements to help the colleges inculcate the right skills among the students. “The need for personnel is not just IT but the health and automobile sectors.” The awareness programme held at Ibahrimpatnam for Krishna district on Tuesday is among the first where 3000 students have attended.
The APNRT has been set up by the government to bring global investments and companies into the State and enthuse NRTs to be part of Andhra Pradesh’s growth story. The organisation is facilitating village development under the Smart Village Smart Ward programme while developing partnerships with foreign universities. It also provides services for NRTs like facilitating temple visits and assisting them in government documentations or procedures, legal help and migration issues.
