Gandhinagar : Long slammed by Gujaratis settled in the US for making no attempt to `market' their home state in their adopted country, the Gujarat government has finally decided to push for American investment in the information technology (IT) sector through an event in Washington next month.Creative Choice, the promoters of the Rs 7 billion Infocity project of the Gujarat government, is to organise the event with a view to attracting US-based IT companies to the state.Infocity is the state government's flagship in the IT sector, with Gujarat trying to catch up with the advances made by the southern states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. It is coming up on the outskirts of Gandhinagar.
Infocity will have 18 info-towers. The first of these will be ready by September 2001 though the 250,000 square feet space available in the tower has already been booked, according to the government. Work on the second tower will begin in February. Infocity would be fully operational within seven years.
Creative Choice, headed by Florida-based Dilip Barot, has an annual turnover of around $100 million. It has handled similar commercial and estate development projects at local, state and federal levels in the U.S., Barot told IANS.
The entire social and physical infrastructure for Infocity will be set up in the first phase of the project. This involves an investment of Rs 1 billion.
Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
