More Tier II cities to have IT service hubs: KTR

“When we started our journey in 2014, there were a lot of doubts on industrialisation, potential of Hyderabad, how the new government would ensure that the momentum is not lost,” KTR said.

Hyderabad: Telangana Government is making efforts to bring IT services companies to set up operations in Tier 2 cities like Siddipet and Ramagundam. This will be cost effective for companies and on the other hand create local employment, said IT Minister KT Rama Rao.

New IT hubs will come up at Nalgonda, Ramagundam and Siddipet. Karimnagar, Mahbubnagar, and Nizamabad have already seen a clutch of IT service companies setting up their operations. Warangal received good support from the industry with Cyient, Tech Mahindra and Mindtree opening their centres there. There are also smaller startups and SMEs, which have done well, he said.

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“When we started our journey in 2014, there were a lot of doubts on industrialisation, potential of Hyderabad, how the new government would ensure that the momentum is not lost,” he said at the CII Telangana State Annual Meeting titled T-Next.

Telangana has emerged a key investment magnet and is ranked among the top three State in terms of ease of doing. The State economy has been growing at an annual rate of nine per cent. It achieved double-digit growth in the two consecutive years before Covid, he said.

“We wanted to grow faster but the overall economic situation in the country was not conducive. Economy slowed for eight consecutive quarters before Covid came. The GDP growth fell from 8 per cent to 4 per cent. We ended up in a lockdown, which resulted in a recession. We now slowly are seeing steady signs of recovery,” he said.

Life sciences, healthcare, information technology, aerospace, defence, logistics and food processing continue to remain the main stay of Telangana. AI, data analytics, IoT, robotics, blockchain, drones, gaming, animation, VFX and the home grown Tollywood industry have been doing well in the State. A lot of OTT platforms have been creating content in Hyderabad, he said.

In 2013-14, the IT exports were Rs 57,000 crore. “I am happy to report that this fiscal, inspite of Covid, we are expecting to grow about 7 per cent over last year. The STPI is tentatively putting the export figure at Rs 1.4 lakh crore. We doubled the exports in less than five-and-half years,” the minister said.

Telangana has put both the digital infrastructure and digital literacy as a priority for Telangana. It is forging ahead with its T-Fibre project. “With respect to vaccine manufacturing and pharmaceuticals, we still have the potential to create a great deal of employment for our children,” he said.

TS is an innovation capital and initiatives like the T-Hub, T-Works and WeHub focus and engage with youngsters from across the country, Rao said.

“With focus of Chief Minister on farm sector, the State is able to supply 24X 7 free power to farmers, improve irrigation facilities and increase godown capacities. We have been able to create more than Rs one lakh crore worth of agricultural products from our State. This leads to a potential opportunity to invest in agro-processing, food processing and allied sectors,” he said.

Rao also spoke about the thriving MSMEs sector in aerospace and defence segments, some of which have supplied components to submarine and satellite projects among others, he said.

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