The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : State woos IT investors

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 07, 2007
ePaper


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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

State woos IT investors

Special Correspondent

Tamil Nadu, West Bengal join the fray

HYDERABAD: It was a kind of sales pitch. Not by some top notch sales professionals but senior bureaucrats — IT Secretaries of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal — seeking investments in their respective States at India Semiconductor Association's `Vision Summit-2007' which concluded here on Tuesday.

Ratna Prabha, IT Secretary, who was the first speaker, gave a broad outline on the Government's strategies for the growth of IT industry. She said Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy was keen that IT should be spread throughout the State. The State's share in IT exports grew from 8.62 per cent to 12.39 per cent in three years.

She said the State offered an attractive IT policy and that several IT parks were coming up, including in Tier Two cities like Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada. Referring to the Jawahar Knowledge Centre initiated by the Government in collaboration with the industry to impart IT education to rural students, she said that 2,841 trained students were absorbed by various companies.

Change in mindset

She urged the industry to change its mindset and not to insist on a student obtaining 60 per cent marks throughout his/her career while recruiting candidates.

Tamil Nadu IT secretary C. Chandramouli said the State planned to occupy 25 per cent of IT space by 2011. Its software exports were growing steadily and the top 10 companies were operating in Chennai. Speaking on `Bengal advantage,' West Bengal IT secretary Siddharth said Kolkata was most competitive in terms of cost and the attrition rate was the lowest. An ambitious project `India Design Centre' was being launched in collaboration with IIT Kharagpur, he noted.

M. Ram Mohan Rao, Dean, Indian School of Business, spoke.

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