Information Technology Minister K.T.Rama Rao announced that Hyderabad has surpassed Bangalore in IT office space occupation as per the latest figures released by the IT industry.
Though the NDA government shelved the Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) proposed by UPA government, State government developed the IT sector without wasting time and top IT companies like Google, Amazon had come to the city in the last five years. Telangana’s IT growth rate was higher than the national average, he said.
In a confident response to the query raised by Congress MLA Bhatti Vikramarka Mallu in the Assembly on Saturday that the Telangana government remained indifferent to the ITIR sanctioned by the UPA government and did not pursue it actively with the NDA government, Mr.Rao substantiated his reply with facts and figures.
Earlier Mr.Vikramarkha said that ITIR would have brought direct employment to 15 lakh people and 55 lakh indirect employment and IT exports worth ₹2.35 lakh crore would have been achieved. The tax revenue itself would have been around ₹30,000 crore, he said. The ITIR would have led to development of 202 sq.km around Hyderabad and ₹50,000 crore investment would have come to clusters proposed in Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts, he said. The Telangana government should take up the issue with the Centre and at least now should pass a resolution in the Assembly if required demanding ITIR project.
Mr.Rao retorted that the Congress members had many misconceptions about ITIR. First of all, UPA -II only made a proposal and never released a single rupee for it after it approved the ITIR proposal for both Hyderabad and Bangalore. “The ITIR was only a hypothetical region and not a project and the projections about direct, indirect employment and IT exports were estimated over a 20-year period,” he said.
Telagnana’s IT exports touched ₹1.09 lakh crore in five years and the employment in IT sector increased from 2.5 lakh to 5.5 lakh and the indirect employment had doubled. Apart from top five global IT companies coming to Hyderabad, 12 lakh jobs were created through TSiPASS and State’s GSDP grew at 17 per cent because of the development in all sectors, the minister added.
