By IANS,
Kolkata: West Bengal has received investment proposals worth Rs.2,250 crores in the information technology (IT) sector during the current fiscal, a minister said Wednesday.
The government was eyeing a massive rise in the state’s share in the country’s exports in the sector, IT Minister Partha Chatterjee told the state assembly.
At present, West Bengal accounts for about three percent of the IT exports from the country, and the target was to raise it to 25 percent, said Chatterjee.
Chatterjee said 500 IT companies operate in the state and employ over 1.20 lakh people.
Asked about the status of the proposed Infosys project, the minister said the Trinamool Congress government was opposed to granting special economic zone (SEZ) status to projects, as was spelt out in the party’s poll manifesto in 2011.
However, the state had no problem in extending facilities like tax concessions and land which has been provided to the IT giants at lower than market rates.
The minister said that companies like Tata Consultancy Services, ITC Infotech, Cognizant, Wipro have committed investments in the state which will boost IT exports from the state.
He said that IT had a bright future in the state, and pointed to initiatives like the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) at Nadia district’s Kalyani and an international design centre at Rajarhat near here.
Later, Leader of the Opposition Surya Kanta Mishra countered Chatterjee and said not a single new IT project has seen the light of the day after the Trinamool government took over the reins of the state.
“There is a negative growth rate in this sector,” Mishra, a politburo member of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) told reporters in the assembly lobby.