Rolling out a red carpet to IT Minister Nara Lokesh on his maiden visit after his induction into the State Cabinet, stakeholders in IT industry have sought a slew of incentives to give much-needed push to Visakhapatnam to become one of the leading hubs in the country.
While admitting that the city had all the ingredients to become a prominent IT destination for investors from all over the world with picturesque locales – the deadly combination of virgin beaches and green-capped hillocks, top representatives from the industry batted for making the city the IT capital of Andhra Pradesh.
Interactive meet
During a visit to Cyber Valley at IT Special Economic Zone, Madhurawda, Symbiosys Technologies and interactive meet with CII members, he spoke on his vision to promote IT and floored them by articulating his plans for creating a favourable ecosystem.
Earlier, he inspected the progress of construction of Millennium Tower – which is expected to solve to a large extent the shortage of ready-made space for plug in and plug out operators.
“He floored everyone us with his open talk on how to promote IT learning from past experience,” CII Vizag zone chairman D.T. Raju told The HIndu .
At Cyber Valley, Rushikonda IT Park Association vice-president O. Naresh Kumar sought free bandwidth of 100 MBPS for small/medium companies, one GBPS for large companies for two years and open access to buy clean renewable power directly from grid and energy providers even for small companies using 100 KVA and above.
IT entrepreneurs also wanted rent-free accommodation to start operations for first three months and after that rent Rs. 20 per sft for new ventures and 50% subsidy on purchase of software and hardware up to Rs. 1 crore for hardware and Rs. 1 crore for software for first 100 companies employing 250 plus.
To meet recruitment cost, reimbursement of Rs. 7500 per employee should be made within 12 months of employment. For training and skill development, one-time reimbursement up to Rs. 10,000 was sought.
As part of New IT Policy, they suggested that IT industry workers should be given free bus pass for one year, reimbursement of amount paid by management towards ESI and provident fund, professional tax and a food allowance of Rs. 1000 per month for 12 months.
