KTR asks Centre to reconsider decision on ITIR

Hyderabad: Industries and IT Minister KT Rama Rao demanded the union government to reconsider the decision to scrap the Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) that was sanctioned to Hyderabad. He also asked the Centre to allocate Software Technology Parks of India units to Tier 2 towns in Telangana. Rama Rao said this at the Digital […]

Hyderabad: Industries and IT Minister KT Rama Rao demanded the union government to reconsider the decision to scrap the Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) that was sanctioned to Hyderabad. He also asked the Centre to allocate Software Technology Parks of India units to Tier 2 towns in Telangana.

Rama Rao said this at the Digital India Conclave on Saturday at New Delhi. He presented the rapid strides Telangana was making in the IT sector and also about the various e-governance initiatives of the State.

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“Have recommended to the union Government to formulate legislation on the rampant cybercrime and new law with provision for stringent actin on ISPs and telecom networks to curb the widespread pornography menace. Also recommended a strong regulatory framework to regulate abuse of social media,” Rama Rao said in a tweet.

It may be recalled that the Centre had cancelled the ITIR project that got approval in 2013. The ITIR was aimed at promoting investment in information technology, information technology enabled services and electronic hardware manufacturing. The Government of India’s role was to ensure the availability of external physical infrastructure linkages to the ITIR.

ITIR envisaged to attract Rs 2.19 lakh crore investment including Rs 1.18 lakh crore from the IT and ITeS segment and Rs 1.01 crore from the Electronics Hardware Manufacturing sector. When fully developed and operational, in 2035, ITIR was expected to generate annual revenues of around Rs 2.97 lakh crore.

The IT sector was estimated to generate 13.4 lakh jobs and electronics and hardware around 1.4 lakh jobs. The indirect employment potential was an additional 53.64 lakh jobs in the service industry like catering, housekeeping, security, and transport. The electronics segment was to generate additional indirect employment for 2.3 lakh people. The ITIR would have generated additional indirect revenue of Rs 5.73 lakh crore.

Despite not having an ITIR, Telangana continues to nurture the IT landscape and it reached a point where one in every three IT jobs created across India is from Telangana. Telangana’s IT/ ITeS Exports touched Rs 1,83,569 cr for the financial year 2021-22, an impressive increase of 26% over Rs 1,45,522 crore in 2020-21. The IT/ ITeS exports in all saw a 220% growth since 2013-14.

Earlier, the union Government sanctioned 22 new STPIs for tier 2 and tier 3 towns in the country.

Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha, Bihar, Haryana, Gujarat, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh got the STPI units. Telangana did not feature in that list and the State flagged the injustice of not allocating a single STPI out of the 22 allocated in the country.