More articles by

Lalita Iyer
Lalita Iyer

Ambitious

CM Chandrasekhar Rao unveils Telangana IT policy

telangana-cm-it-policy (File) Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao flanked by Deputy CM Mahmood Ali (L) and K. Keshav Rao in Hyderabad | PTI
  • Our vision is to make Telangana a leading global hub for technology entrepreneurship and innovation in the country—Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao

The IT Policy 2016 of Telangana was announced by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, in the presence of Infosys Chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy and captains of the industry.

“Our vision is to make Telangana a leading global hub for technology entrepreneurship and innovation in the country," the chief minister said.

It is an ambitious policy that aims to double software exports from the current Rs 68,200 crore and creating 8 lakh more jobs in the next five years.

The policy also seeks to establish IT hubs in tier-II and tier-III cities and expand the services to rural areas through a string of tailor-made incentive packages for mega IT projects and marquee IT companies.

Currently Hyderabad occupies second position in the country after Bengaluru in terms of software exports. The new policy aims at making Telangana the global IT hub by creating hassle-free business environment.

The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) chairman B.V.R. Mohan Reddy predicted that the Telangana IT sector will touch Rs 1000 billion within the next 24 months.

Along with IT policy, the government unveiled four other sub-policies on electronics, rural technology centres, and innovation, animation and gaming.

“We accord highest priority to the ICT sector covering not just Hyderabad but also small towns. We have identified three broad areas for big boost. These include data mining and analytics, gaming and animation and cyber security,” the State Information Technology Minister K.T. Rama Rao added.

The rural IT hubs will be called Rural Technology Centres (RTCs). The RTC can be set up either in a mandal or a village, with a population of not less than 50,000.

Global technology giants like Google and Amazon are already building in Hyderabad their biggest campuses outside United States and recently taxi aggregator Uber Technologies Inc. also opened its first centre of excellence in Asia in the city.

The government also unveiled an innovation policy specifically targeted at encouraging start-ups in the state. The government said it would develop 1 million sq ft workspace dedicated to start-ups over the next five years.

About one-third of this space would be developed as second phase of T-Hub that will house 900 start-ups. Telangana plans to partner with 20 global accelerators and incubators to build plug-and-play workspaces in public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

The government said it would mobilize a Rs 20 billion innovation fund across different sectors and growth stages. It will also set up a Rs 2.5 billion seed fund. These measures are expected to promote establishment of 5,000 start-ups in the state, including 1,000 in IT products.

A special policy for electronics sector aims to attract $3 billion in investments with a potential to generate employment for 150,000 people over the next five years.

This browser settings will not support to add bookmarks programmatically. Please press Ctrl+D or change settings to bookmark this page.

Related Reading