10 places across state identified for new IT Parks

After several entrepreneurs showed interest to set up IT firms in the state, the government was keen in setting up IT Parks to house the companies. A decision was taken to build 10 more IT Parks across Bengal and an official of the state Information Technology and Electronics department on Friday said that the 10 places for the IT hubs have been selected.

In North Bengal, the new parks will come up at Cooch Behar, Darjeeling and Kalimpong. In South Bengal, locations of the new IT parks are in Howrah's Belur, Nadia's Kalyani Phase II, Rajarhat's Phase II and Durgapur's Phase II, Chinsurah and two others in Salt Lake Sector V.

Meanwhile, the works for the IT Parks in South 24 Parganas' Bantala, Malda, Krishanpur and Siliguri Phase III has already been initiated. The state is already getting a huge response from the private sector in terms of occupying spaces by IT firms in the newly-developed IT Parks. The projects which are coming up in the future will also get similar response, the officers of state Information Technology and Electronics department hope.

The government is ready to give away seven lakh square feet space available in seventeen Information Technology (IT) Parks across the state. The Information Technology and Electronics department of the state government is working to attract IT entrepreneurs to start their ventures in these newly-built spaces.

The government has started promoting the IT Parks among the new entrepreneurs. West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Limited, a nodal agency of the state government to develop IT in the state, initiated the promotional campaign from Asansol IT Park on Friday. In the seminar, where several entrepreneurs had turned up, the government was praised for the steps taken to set up the IT Parks and the entrepreneurs asked the officials about the viabilities of their businesses. To this, the officials asked the entrepreneurs to mail them in details the queries and assured that they would get back to them with the answers. "We will organise seminars in which officers of state Information Technology and Electronics department will answer the question of entrepreneurs regarding the booking of space in the IT Parks," said an officer.

The government is also offering the best incentive policies for IT and Information Technology Enabled Services (ITeS) companies ranging from interest to training subsidies.