The Hindu : Business : ELCOT, HDFC join hands to promote IT

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 05, 2005

Business

Business

ELCOT, HDFC join hands to promote IT

By Our staff Correspondent

CHENNAI, MARCH 4. Electronic Corporation of Tamil Nadu Limited (ELCOT), a promotional agency of the Government of Tamil Nadu, and HDFC, a housing finance company, today signed a memorandum of understanding to promote the development of IT (information technology) and ITES (information technology enabled services) industries in the state and to market Tamil Nadu as the "Destination of Choice" for investments.

The Regional Manager (Tamil Nadu and Kerala), HDFC, Mathew Joseph, and the Chairman of ELCOT, Vivek Harinarain, signed the MoU.

Tamil Nadu held great investment potential and there was a need for a professional network to facilitate new entrants to launch their operations smoothly, said Mr. Harinarain. This initiative between ELCOT and HDFC was aimed at supporting this need by facilitating consistent and systematic assistance to investors and participants with respect to IT and ITES investments. The newly formed team consisting of officials from both HDFC and ELCOT would provide complete assistance to the new entrants in setting up their facilities.

Mr. Harinarain said ELCOT had set a target to bring one company every two days to Chennai in 2005-06. This initiative was one of the efforts towards achieving that benchmark. He said ELCOT last year facilitated more than six million square feet of information technology space with over 45 IT builders in the private sector. Further, a HR initiative of ELCOT helped to arrive at a Model ITES certificate course, facilitating five universities to start this course in 2004-05. All these, he said, would ensure availability of both physical and human infrastructure in the IT and ITES areas.

Mr. Joseph said HDFC would be able to add value with its experience of over 27 years in the real estate market on aspects such as (1) assisting prospective entrants in understanding their space requirement based on specific business plans (2) extending support in locating a suitable property as per the requirements of the prospective entrants (3) assisting in identifying the land and a suitable developer to take on construction activities and (4) facilitating finance for developers other property related advisory services.

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