Punjab to emerge as destination for infotech sector: Minister
Tuesday, 10/12/2013
http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=88771&boxid=65751&uid=&dat=2013-12-10
Chandigarh : Participating in the Information Technology (IT) Session of the Progressive Punjab Summit, Punjab IT Minister Adesh Pratap Singh Kairon satiated the queries of the participants and informed them that the Government of Punjab was working with the mission to see Punjab emerges as the destination for IT.
To achieve the goal, he informed that the state was creating investor friendly, efficient, conducive and an enabling ecosystem for investment in the field of IT & Electronic Hardware. The Minister further informed that Mohali and Amritsar were being promoted as key IT destinations.
Talking about Mohali, Kairon said “everything is in line”. As many as 1700 acres are available for development in the IT City, 40 acres of land has been earmarked for electronics hardware, Electronics Township has been developed in 289 acres and facilities are available for Centre for Development of Advanced Computing(C-DAC), he added.
Speaking further he mentioned that there was Plug and Play infrastructure at Quark City and state of art incubation Centre at Mohali. Land had been acquired in Amritsar and the proposed project will take off soon, he added,
He also informed that necessary spadework would also be undertaken to develop Ludhiana and Jalandhar as IT destinations. Kairon informed that IT Policy was well in place but doors were not shut to suggestions and changes could be incorporated in it as and when the need be after deliberations with the stakeholders.
Meanwhile, IT Secretary A R Talwar giving details of the Package of incentives in IT Policy of Punjab informed that it offers 80 per cent retention in VAT & CST for 10 years up to 80 per cent of Fixed Capital Investment, 100 per cent exemption from electricity duty for 10 years , 100 per cent exemption from stamp duty on purchase/lease of land, 100 per cent exemption from Property Tax for 10 years, exemption of clearances from Pollution Control Board and inspection under various labour laws.
He also counted the Preferential Market Access(PMA) to Electronics Hardware Manufacturing units in line with GOI policy and Special incentive package for electronic system design manufacturing cluster for semi conductor Wafer Fab. Technicolour Country Head Biren Ghose, Sagitaur Group of Companies Chairman & MD BV Naidu, Software Technology Park of India Director General Onkar Rai, Indian Cellular Association National President Pankaj Mohindroo, Corporate Affairs Accenture MD Sanjeev Gupta, PMC Sierra MD sales Sanjeev Keskar and Co-founder & President- Marketing iYogi Vishal Dhar were constituted the panelists for the session.
The dignitaries put forth their views on various aspects of IT sector, its needs, challenges, emerging trends and future possibilities. It emerged from the two-hour-long session that timely initiative coupled with a lot of incentives offered by Government of Punjab could reap good harvest but Govt of Punjab needed to showcase its offers and opportunities to IT giants.
