HIDCO floats Expression Of Interest for Fintech hub

Kolkata: West Bengal Housing & Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) has floated Expression Of Interest (EOI) for a Fintech hub in the Central Business District (CBD) of New Town. The total land allocated for the proposed hub is 27.738 acre and the 15 plots that will be on offer will be in the range of 0.248 to 4.5 acre.

The presentation regarding the Fintech hub was made by Debjit Ganguly, administrative officer of New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) at the 10th Banking Colloquium organised by CII on Saturday. Ganguly represented HIDCO chairman and Principal Secretary of state IT department Debashis Sen who could not attend the event due to an important government-level meeting.

The cluster for the Fintech companies with plug and play infrastructure will be at a strategic location from Nazrul Tirtha, Business Club, Seniors' Park and most importantly the proposed state-of-the-art convention centre located near the land earmarked for this hub. The last date for applications has been fixed on October 16.

"In case of financial institutions, the applicant must have the minimum average turnover of Rs 500 crore for the last three financial years ending on March 2017," a senior HIDCO official said.

The Ambassador of Mongolia to India met Sen at the office of IT&E Department at Sector 5 on Friday. Sen explained the government's approach of doing IT in clusters. He added that the Education Hub of New Town (IIT, Presidency, St Xaviers', Alia, Amity, UEM and other Universities) and the Financial Hub (23 institutions) of New Town made them focus on the cluster approach.

Fintech has generated a business of 1.2 billion dollars in the country in 2015 and is expected to grow two times in the year 2020, according to experts. The offer price of the land in the proposed hub has been fixed at Rs 13 crore per acre. "The allowable Floor Area Ratio (FAR) of each plot will be 3.5 and a maximum of 30 percent of the total allowable floor area may be used for the permitted subsidiary utility purposes that has been described under Section 25 A (b) the New Town Kolkata (Building) Rules 2009," a HIDCO official said.