IT sector continues to flourish in AP: Ponnala

Hyderabad: Brushing aside the misgivings that Hyderabad had lost valuable investment opportunities due to political crisis, the State’s IT and Communications Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah on Monday said the IT exports have grown two per cent over and above the national average to Rs 64,000 crore.

In support of his argument, the Minister said: “For instance, Infosys, which committed to take workforce to the tune of 45,000 software professionals in their Pocharam facility, and has already commenced their operations there with over 8,000 professionals and expects to achieve the target in the next two and odd years.”

Similarly, TCS facility in Adibatla is also committed to recruit around 25,000 professionals in the next couple of years, while Wipro will provide employment to about 12,000 software engineers, the Minister revealed. These is the progress made in case of IT majors in Hyderabad and there are small and medium facilities which are also providing employment, he added.

Refusing to buy the argument that political crisis has dented investment climate in the State, the Minister further revealed that even the global IT majors like Oracle, Google, Amazon etc are expected to generate IT and related job opportunities in the coming months and years. He made these observations here while talking to media after releasing brochure of the CREDAI Conclave scheduled to be organised in New Delhi on December 13-14, 2013.

Lakshmaiah further said that the government has already submitted proposals for two more ITIRs in the State, one at Vishakhapatnam and other between Chittoor and Anantapur districts. “The proposals are currently under the consideration of the Central government,” he added, claiming that the State government has been doing its best in this regard. “Political system is not coming in the way of development,” he claims.

He further revealed that his department will formulate draft policy on ‘Gaming and Animation’ industry. “We are shortly coming up with the policy for the development of gaming and animation industry in the State,” the Minister said.

Earlier, P Lakshmaiah asked the real estate and infrastructure industry to take advantage and participate in a big way, in the proposed Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) which covers 202 sq kms around Hyderabad. The project will be implemented in two phases, while in the first phase the investment is earmarked to the tune of Rs 4,800 crore and in the second phase the government’s share of investment will be Rs 30,000 crore in the next 25 years.