WB seeks investments in h/w, chip manufacturing

Kolkata, Jul 7: The West Bengal Information Technology Ministry is seeking investments in hardware and chip manufacturing units after the success in the software sector.

"The Indian Institute of technology at Kharagpur will prepare a proposal for the state government in terms of permissible investment patterns in the chip designing, assembling and manufacturing of computer hardware," state IT minister Debesh Das said.

The minister said by the end of August 2006, every panchayat in the district of Burdwan is expected to be linked to its block, district and subsequently state headquarter.

The department is also looking at acquiring a 330 acre plot at Jagadishpur near the Kolkata Airport for development of IT parks, he said.

The estimated requirement of land for the IT industry in the state is expected to be at around 13 million square feet by 2010.

Siliguri, Durgapur, Haldia and Kharagpur are also being developed as satellite IT hubs of Kolkata, he said.

UNI