VISAKHAPATNAM: Hailing the new IT Policy approved by the State Cabinet as ‘simple, yet attractive’, the IT Association of Andhra Pradesh said the proposed university would be a game changer in terms of attracting new companies to the State. ITAAP president Sreedhar Kosaraju said they were happy with the announcement of ‘Integrated Technology Park’ in Vizag, consisting of an Emerging Technologies Research University (ETRU), incubation centres, Centres of Excellence (CoE), labs, co-working spaces, State Data Centre (SDC) and supporting offices of the IT, E&C department.
“ETRU should be made operational as early as possible,’’ he said. Sreedhar said the industry has been waiting for the IT policy for the last 16 months as the last policy expired in March 2020. “The new policy should be implemented with effect from April 2020 instead of April 2021 as proposed,’’ he demanded. He said a heartening feature in the policy was a timeline was fixed for payment incentive and all enterprises will be paid within six months from the date of issue of the order. “In the new IT policy, it has been proposed an employment creation incentive of 10 per cent of CTC for every new job created. It has been made applicable for the existing companies also,’’ he said.
The government has decided to give Rs 20,000 as incentive for each new employee in work from home and 50 per cent reimbursement on quality certification. “Now all IT industries will be charged industrial power tariff and a transport subsidy of Rs 500 will be paid per employee a month for two years,’’ he said. He said start ups will get a boost as the government has proposed to launch a flagship start up promotion scheme. A fund of Rs 100 crore will be cocreated in partnership with a consortium of Venture Capitals and Private Equity firms and universities, for funding start ups in the state.
ITAAP president elect Lakshmi Patra said the new IT policy has met by and large expectations of the industry. “Vizag will emerge as the best city in the country,’’ she observed. Vice president of Rushikonda IT Park Association O Naresh Kumar said the policy is good on paper and their effective implementation was a big issue. He said the government should release incentives which have been pending for the last two and a half years immediately to help the industry during the pandemic.