The Hindu Business Line : Chennai to be promoted as IT destination

THE Government of Tamil Nadu, the Information Technology (IT) industry and the infrastructure sector have come together to promote Chennai as the destination for IT investment.

"Chennai is a good product and as a city compares favourably with other metros," Mr Vivek Harinarain, IT Secretary, Tamil Nadu Government, said.

At a seminar on Destination Chennai, he said, that in its IT policy, the State Government had announced various fiscal and infrastructural incentives to support the IT industry in its IT policy.

The initiatives of the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) in promoting the IT sector in the Chennai Metropolitan Area includes permission for constructing multi-storied buildings for IT industry even outside the city limits. IT and Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) are permitted in all land used zones except agricultural, non-urban special and hazardous industrial use and reserved open spaces, he said.

The State has also set up separate task force on cyber security, prevention of cyber crimes and IT infrastructure. Another major advantage that the State had was the availability of English speaking IT skilled manpower, Mr Harinarain said.

The Government plans to set up knowledge industry townships on the IT highway (the Old Mahabalipuram Road) through public-private partnership programmes. A special purpose vehicle will be created to own and take forward the initiatives to position Coimbatore, Madurai, Tiruchi, Tirunelveli and Salem as Tier II cities for investment.

There are also plans to utilise the infrastructure in the industrial estates such as Perungudi, Maramimalai Nagar and Ambattur, he said.

Giving an overview of the Chennai realty market, Chennai's IT infrastructure developers pointed out that in the last four years, the IT sector absorbed almost 58 per cent of the total space available in the market, 25 per cent by the ITES, followed by 3 to 5 per cent split among manufacturing, finance, services and telecom.

Mr Vinnie Mehta, Executive Director, Manufacturers Association of Information Technology, said that Chennai is ideally suited to be a hardware manufacturing hub as the city had two major ports (Chennai and Ennore) and an international airport.

Chennai, he said, could easily replace the manufacturing units in Taiwan and China as it is located closer to the markets in the US and Europe. He said that with the cost of transportation and insurance going up, cutting cost and transportation time becomes a critical issue.

More Stories on : Software | Industrial Policy | Tamil Nadu

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