Visakhapatnam, Oct 15: The Andhra Pradesh Industrial
Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) plans to construct IT incubation
towers here and in other towns of the State such as Kakinada, Tirupati
and Warangal to provide plug-and-play facilities for small entrepreneurs
in these towns and to promote IT, according to sources.
It
has been a long-pending demand to construct these IT towers in the
towns, as IT has remained confined largely to Hyderabad, even though
Visakhapatnam has made a little headway during the past decade or so.
The
APIIC is planning to construct an IT tower at Gambheeram village in
Visakhapatnam district, where an IT special economic zone is coming up,
and also another one at Madhurawada near Visakhapatnam.
At
a recent review meeting in Hyderabad on the issue, State Investment
Minister G. Srinivasa Rao is reported to have suggested that it would be
preferable to have one IT tower at Madhurawada and the second one
within city limits, and not at Gambheeram village, as the village is far
away.
The minister has suggested to the APIIC to
take back one acre of undeveloped land lying with Wipro in the heart of
the city at the TB hospital junction and use it for IT tower
construction.
Alternatively, the APIIC can also seek
one acre near the Waltair Club from the Visakhapatnam Urban Development
Authority (VUDA) or get an acre from the district administration for
the purpose. He prefers to have an IT incubation tower in the city for
the benefit of entrepreneurs.
The IT towers in
Visakhapatnam will have office space of 50,000 Sft apiece and those in
the smaller towns 10,000 Sft. The APIIC has identified consultants for
these towers in each town. They may be constructed within nine months or
one year, it is said.
The APIIC has been advised to
use green building concepts in constructing these towers. The district
collector of Karimnagar has agreed to provide land for construction of
IT park and incubation tower and the proposal is under consideration.
It
is also proposed to have three major electronic hardware manufacturing
clusters in the State, one of them at Parawada in Visakhapatnam
district. A site of 100 acres has been identified at Parawada for the
purpose.
It is hoped these steps will spur small entrepreneurs to set up IT units in these towns and provide jobs to the youth.
