Taking a cue from Zoho, the Tamil Nadu government plans to develop mini Tidel Parks, IT parks, in tier-2 and tier-3 towns to spread out the IT sector that is too dependent on urban centres such as Chennai and Coimbatore.

In the first phase, the mini Tidel Parks will come up at Villupuram, Cuddalore, Theni and Salem, said a senior State government official.

“Zoho has been successfully running its facility out of Tenkasi. We also want to do a similar initiative to spread the IT sector to smaller towns,” the official said. This makes sense as thousands of employees working in large companies are from smaller towns, he added.

Large format Tidel Park is in Chennai and Coimbatore, and one is coming up at Pattabiram, a suburb of Chennai.

The first of the Tidel Parks was set up in Chennai in 2000 on Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR). Tidel stands for the joint venture between State-run Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (Tidco) and Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (Elcot). The 12.80 lakh facility sparked the development of OMR as an IT corridor.

However, the mini Tidel Parks will be set up in 50,000-1 lakh sq ft through joint ventures. A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) will take up the project. The SPV may be formed between Tidel Park Ltd and a government agency nominated by the government to implement the project in those places where the land cost is very high and in other places if Tidel wants, it can pay for the land, says a Government Order.

The Government has directed that the land cost as fixed by the District Collector shall be the equity contribution of the government and Tidel Park Ltd can invest in the project through its own resources or loans raised from other sources. The district collectors are permitted to give permission to Tidel/SPV formed by Tidel pending the land transfer as per the existing rules.

STPI Chennai has spread its industry base across ten districts - Chennai, Coimbatore, Trichy, Madurai, Tirunelveli, Salem, Vellore, Tirupur, Erode and Thanjavur. Though the major concentration of exporting companies are at Chennai, secondary cities are being seriously considered by the IT companies for cost advantage and good human resource, says its website.

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