By IANS,
Chandigarh : The Indian government has notified a policy for Information Technology Investment Regions (ITIR), to help the information technology (IT) industry to spread out to tier II and tier III cities.
“We have drafted a set of policies and guidelines to facilitate the expansion of information technology and information technology enabled service (IT-ITES) industry beyond the current set of locations in the country,” said Jainder Singh, secretary, information technology in the central government.
“The state government will have to identify minimum of 4,000 hectares of land and assist in the provision of basic infrastructure such as power, water, state roads, etc for the smooth growth of the IT industry,” he said.
For these ITIRs the central government will ensure the availability of external physical infrastructure, linkages to the ITIR including national highways, airports, telecom and rail network in a time-bound framework and the private sector will have to play a proactive role in this drive, Singh said.
He added that Chandigarh and its neighbouring towns are one such location and a destination for ITIR which would create opportunities for employment.
“Most of the big information technology companies in the world have started from small ideas, often from a garage, and the government role should be to encourage entrepreneurs and provide requisite enabling environment for implementation of their ideas,” Singh said.