AP mulls over creating five lakh jobs in IT sector

Hyderabad, Feb 8 (UNI) The Andhra Pradesh Government has envisaged creation of five lakh jobs in the Information Technology (IT) sector through proactive steps, including promotion of sector-specific Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and IT parks particulary in tier-II cities.

Addressing a press meet here, State IT and Communications Minister P Sabitha Reddy said as part of the strategy, the government had approved setting up 44 SEZs with built-up area of 50 million sq ft.

She said the state planned to achieve employment of one lakh every year in the IT sector.

Out of this, at least 20,000 jobs per annum would be achieved through the Jawahar Knowledge Centre initiative, the first such in the country to impart skills to fresh graduates in rural areas and make them suitable for the IT Industry. So far, 4,553 students were trained in 67 JKCs covering 224 engineering and other colleges and were absorbed by IT majors like Infosys, Wipro and IBM.

Noting that IT growth so far was limited to Hyderabad only, Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy had directed her department to ensure percolation of IT to at least 10 more tier-II cities, she said.

While IT majors, including Wipro, Satyam, Infotech enterprises, had expanded their operations to Visakhapatnam, IBBS Technopark and Linus Infotech had come forward to make Rs 64 crore investment in Warangal and provide jobs to 1,500 persons.

Five IT clusters would be started around the upcoming Outer Ring road in Hyderabad, she said.

In Vijayawada, the government had earmarked 30 acre of land for construction of IT towers in collaboration with Larsen and Toubro, she said, adding that an IT incubation centre in 10,500 sq ft would be set up by May this year in Tirupati in collaboration with the Software Technology Park of India (STPI).

The state, which had maintained first position in IT growth rate in the last two years in the country, had targeted Rs 20,000 crore exports revenue during this fiscal.

''Our growth rate was 64.5 per cent against national average of 34 per cent with IT export turnover of Rs 8,270 crore in 2004-05 and 51 per cent during 2005-06 against national average of 36 per cent with turnover of Rs 12,521 crore,'' she said, adding, that the IT sector accounted for 53.03 per cent of the state's export revenues of Rs 23,878.30 crore during 2005-06.

UNI