The State Government would spend Rs5,000 crore in next five years towards IT/ITES/ESDM (Information Technology/Information Technology Enabled Services/Electronic System Design and Manufacturing) for inclusive growth and employment.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik while inaugurating the new IT block of Tech-Mahindra adding to the existing block that houses 500 associates here said, “The growth rate of IT exports from the State is more than the national growth rate for last several years while there is a tremendous growth of IT industries both large and SMEs at Bhubaneswar in the past decade.”
“By this process, the State Government is going to spend around Rs5,000 crore from the State budget in next five years towards IT/ ITES and ESDM. To start with, the Government has decided to make the entire Bhubaneswar city WiFi enabled and for that, the STPI, Bhubaneswar has been engaged as a consultant,” Patnaik added.
Stating that Odisha is the first State in the country to sign an MoU with TiE, Silicon Valley, US to attract foreign investment under ESDM sector in the EMC, he said the Government has put in place a new industry-friendly ICT Policy-2014 to make Odisha the preferred IT destination for IT/ITES/ESDM.
The ICT policy has many ambitious objectives, including a target to achieve a gross ICT turnover of four billion US dollars, direct employment of 60,000 IT professionals, attract ten leading IT/ITES and five leading ESDM companies to the State, create a built-up space of six million square feet and develop a land bank of 2,000 acres by 2020, the Chief Minister observed.
Among others, IT Minister Pranab Prakash Das, Tourism and Culture Minister Ashok Panda, local MP Prasanna Patsani, MlAs Priyadarshi Mishra, Bijay Mohanty, BMC Mayor AN Jena, Chief Secretary GC Pati and Tech Mahindra MD and CEO CP Gurnani attended the event.