West Bengal, fast emerging as a favourite destination for the booming IT and ITES sector, would provide a massive 13.3 million sq. feet of built up space for 13 IT park projects.
"Thirteen IT Park projects, including expansion of some existing facilities, are underway to boost the IT infrastructure in the state. These would provide a total of 13.3 million sq ft of built up space to the IT sector," state IT secretary G D Gautama told PTI in Kolkata on Wednesday.
The projects, which included four new IT Parks at Rajarhat in the eastern fringes of the city, would come up within the next 24-30 months, he said.
The major projects were the Rs 750 crore (Rs 7.5 billion) IT Park being developed by the Unitech Group (2 mn sq ft), Rs 450 crore (Rs 4.5 billion) project of Ascendas (2 mn sq ft) and the Rs 280 crore (Rs 2.8 billion) IT Park of the DLF Group at Rajarhat.
Besides, the Videocon Group was coming up with its IT Park project to add another 2 mn sq ft of space at Salt Lake.
The upcoming projects would help overcome the space shortage for the IT sector following the saturation of the IT Park at Salt Lake, Gautama said.
Meanwhile, the state would have two more software technology parks at Haldia and Siliguri by January, 2006 to provide connectivity and bandwidth.
The STP at Durgapur has gone operational from April 1, 2004 with availability of bandwidth while STP Kharagpur was opened from August 1 last year.
About the availability of land for new IT investment, Gautama said the state IT department was acquiring 500 acre of land near the N S C Bose International airport to develop the state's next IT hub at Rajarhat, which would be nearly three times the existing IT complex at Salt Lake.
Meanwhile, the state was expected to garner about 40 per cent growth in software export to over Rs 3,700 crore (Rs 37 billion) in 2005-06 as compared to Rs 2,700 crore achieved last year.
Stating that it was a "conservative estimate", Gautama said the state's share in total software exports from India is also expected to rise significantly from the current 5.2 per cent by the end of this fiscal.
The state government, stressing on the growth of the knowledge economy sectors, has aimed at achieving a 15 per cent share in IT and 20 per cent share in ITES by 2010.
About the ongoing projects, he said the ITES project of HSBC Electronics Data Processing Pvt Ltd, to employ 2,000 professionals, would start operation in the first week of November, 2005.
The projects of Mahindra-British Telecom and GE Cap, each to employ 2,000 people, were expected to be commissioned by September, 2006.
Gecis, a global leader in high-quality business services and technology solutions, would be setting up its next development centre in Kolkata while Satyam would be allotted 2.8 acre land at Salt Lake soon for its new development centre.
Altogether, 235 IT and ITES firms have established their bases in the city so far employing about 32,000 professionals, he said.
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