HYDERABAD: Minister for Municipal Administration & Urban Development, Industries, and IT & Commerce KT Rama Rao came down heavily on the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the present National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre for not sanctioning a single penny towards the establishment of an Information Technology and Investment Region (ITIR) in Hyderabad.
ITIR for Hyderabad and other cities was sanctioned by the previous UPA government just a few months before its term ended. Though ITIR was sanctioned to the city, no specific funds were allocated, and as a result, the project was put on hold, the minister said.
The IT minister said that despite repeated pleas and personal meetings with the then IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and finance minister Arun Jaitley, the BJP-led NDA government failed to provide funds for ITIR.
He pointed out that RS Prasad went to the extent of saying that the government had shelved ITIRs and that it is was not on the agenda of the NDA government as the Centre did not consider the project as a viable option to promote the IT industry.
Further, the IT minister slammed Congress MLA, Sridhar Babu for ‘falsely’ claiming that the State government failed to provide requisite information to the Central government which in turn resulted in a delay in the sanctioning of funds for the ITIR.
Spreading to tier-II cities
KT Rama Rao informed the House that the government was working towards taking IT to the tier-II cities in the State and announced that an IT Tower would come up in October in Karimnagar. Two others in Khammam and Nizamabad, meanwhile, would be established by November or December this year.
IT growth across Hyderabad
MLAs Akbaruddin Owaisi and KP Vivekananda complained that IT growth was limited only to the western corridor of Hyderabad and wanted the government spread it across the city. In response to that, KT Rama Rao said that the concentration of IT companies in one place in cities like Bengaluru had led to their eventual destruction.
He added that the government would take steps to avoid issues like those in Bengaluru city and would set up companies at different parts of the city. He said that the IT startup companies would come up at Shamshabad, Maheswaram, airport area and fab city.
Rama Rao said that they were now searching for suitable places of land to set up the IT parks in these identified areas. He assured MLAs that the government would take steps to ensure that the growth of IT sector was not confined to the western part of Hyderabad but to other parts of it as well.