Andhra to set up hardware park
Posted November 26, 1999 (India Today)
Hyderabad, November 26: Andhra Pradesh government would set up a hardware technology park on the city outskirts as part of its efforts to give a boost to information technology industry. According to R Chandrasekhar, infotech secretary, 5,000 acre land had been earmarked for the purpose near the proposed international airport at Shamshabad.
The state government has also decided to create a venture capital fund, with a Rs 15 crore corpus, to provide financial assistance to internet and other it start-up companies. The proposed fund would be jointly set up by the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC), Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation (APIDC) and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), said Chandrasekhar, who is also managing director of APII. The venture capital fund would become operational by next month, he said
The state IT secretary also announced that the works on the second phase of the ambitious hi-tech city (Hyderabad information technology and engineering consultancy) project would commence next month with 92 per cent of the space in the first phase having already been occupied.
Seeking to refute the claim by detractors that the state's share in the country's total software exports remained stagnant at nine per cent, he said that the exports from the state had registered a tremendous growth from a mere Rs 22 crore in 1994-95 to Rs 573 crore in 1998-99. This meant an increase in the state's share of total software exports from 1.43 per cent to 5.73 per cent during the period, he said.
The number of software companies in Hyderabad recorded a growth of 71 per cent during the period compared to 25 per cent in Bangalore, 36 per cent in Noida and 51 per cent in Chennai, he said |
