Making a strong pitch for using e-governance and IT for the welfare of Andhra Pradesh and accelerate economic development, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu today urged the IT industry to explore the huge opportunities opening up in the state, especially in Vizag. “AP is poised towards creating a benchmark in IT, Electronics & Communication Technology and Innovation, endowed with high quality state-of-the-art infrastructure, skilled human resources, and business-friendly policies. These plans are going to throw up a large number of opportunities in all the sectors of the economy including IT and Electronics, Healthcare, Transportation, Infrastructure, Education and Agriculture. We will ensure that the IT ecosystem remains friendly, welcoming and supportive to the excellent work that each one of you is doing. We invite you to explore the huge opportunities in the new state of Andhra Pradesh and look forward to establishing a long-term association with you,” Naidu said while talking to IT honchos gathered to discuss ‘IT/ITEs, the roadmap ahead’, organized by Nasscom here.
Taking a step forward in creating such an IT ecosystem, Technology Research and Incubation Park (TRIP) will be established in Visakhapatnam for new ideas, product development and promotion of start-ups, Naidu said. Apart from IT and IT Enabled Services, Vizag will also be home to electronics and hardware manufacturing, and will be a hub for research, incubation and entrepreneurship. “I?m confident that cities in Andhra Pradesh, beginning with Vizag, will soon show rapid growth and become the most attractive and highly preferred IT destinations,” Naidu said.
Andhra Pradesh plans to take fibre to every village and broadband to every house, create a knowledge society, build up extremely skilled human resources and encourage manufacturing activity. Innovation, incubation and entrepreneurship will be key tools to accelerate economic development of the State, the CM said. The AP Information Technology Police 2014-20 aims to attract investment worth Rs 12,000 crores and create five lakh jobs by 2020. The policy offers investment subsidy of 10 per cent of capital expenditure for projects which employ minimum 5,000 people. Women and SC/ST entrepreneurs would get 25 per cent investment subsidy on fixed capital.
Naidu, who recently chaired the first e-Cabinet meeting at Hyderabad, stated that e-government and e-governance are going to play a pivotal role in establishing good governance in AP.
“We have launched three key policies of IT, Electronics, Innovation & Start-Up Policy for the period of 2014-2020. I?m confident that these policies will scale Andhra Pradesh to great heights and make it the leading state in implementing the Central government?s ?Digital India? initiative,” he said.