IT dept set to promote New Town as fintech hub at Singapore Fintech Festival

Kolkata: The state Information and Technology (IT) department is all set to promote New Town as a fintech hub in a big way at the Singapore Fintech Festival that kicks off from Monday. Bengal is among the three states in the country which will participate in the India Pavilion at the Singapore Festival.

Sources in the state IT department said that Additional Chief Secretary of IT department, Debashis Sen will make a presentation of 50 minutes on "Fintech Opportunities in India and its Challenges" on Monday and Bengal will be projected in a big way in it. The Bengal pavilion that will be set up at the Singapore Fintech Festival will also contain attractive posters highlighting the progress made by IT department under the leadership of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the last six years.

"Our main focus will be to promote New Town as a fintech hub in the best possible way," a senior official of the IT department said. The Mamata Banerjee government has already conceptualised a finTech hub in New Town near the financial hub, where tech firms and New Technology ventures will be provided space to work with financial Institutions with plug and play infrastructure. 23 firms have already taken up space in the finance hub.

West Bengal Housing & Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) had already floated Expression of Interest (EOI) for the fintech hub. 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.

According to sources in the IT department, 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 maybe used for the permitted subsidiary utility purposes that has been described under Section 25 A (b) of the New Town Kolkata (Building) Rules, 2009.

Senior official of the IT department held a meeting with various stakeholders in the IT sector recently and deliberated on the way forward for strategy to be adopted in 2018 for positioning Bengal as a leader in the Global New Technology Eco System. Apart from Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand will also be part of the India Pavilion in Singapore. The Singapore Fintech Festival is in its second year. It will be held from November 13 to 17.at Singapore Expo Halls 1 to 3.