IT PARK: A DREAM GONE AWRY
Smriti Sharma,
The Tribune
City’s much-hyped IT Park can perhaps be termed as an ambitious project going awry, for ever since its on a roll, nothing seems to be going right with it. For the UT’s estate office is set to serve notices on nine non-IT firms for misusing built-up spaces in Phase-I meant only for the IT firms. After hitting series of “roadblocks”, including many IT firms pulling out and non-IT firms entering in, now the UT estate office is also contributing its share.
These identified non-IT firms in the
Despite being in the know of things for past several months, estate officials maintain that due to the shortage of manpower and means it was not possible for them to identify the non-IT firms.
“The manpower that we have to keep a check on whether the company happens to be IT or non-IT was unable to find out the company’s profiles. So, finally we had to ask the DIT to help identify the firms for us. A joint team was the formed to do the needful,” said Ashwini Kumar, AEO. “By evening today, notices would be served on the firms”, he added.
While it is surprising that the primary goal with which the IT park was conceptualised, was to generate jobs at the highest levels for the youth of the region. The fact can well be gauged from the brochure that was released by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh at the time of the IT Park’s inauguration in 2005.
At that time it, the officials of the UT administration had visualised that by the end of three years, it would be able to providing jobs to 25,000 youths and more. But, so far not more than 10,000 youths have got employment.
In July 2008, the department of information and technology, UT, had also served a notice on DLF developers for leasing out built-up space to non-IT companies in the IT Park. The department had sought a status report on the non-IT activity in the IT Park.
It’s almost eight year since the land was acquired for the three- phase IT park in 2000 till 2005 when it was inaugurated by the Prime Minister, IT park is yet to be, what can be termed as become “fully functional”.
While nearly 16 IT companies were to set up their offices in the IT Park initially, most of them never turned up for various reasons.
The department had also written to the estate officer to initiate action against the real estate developer for violating the terms and conditions of the Chandigarh Sales of Sites and Allotment Rules. As per the allotment rules, the built-up space can only be leased out to those companies that deal with IT and IT-enabled services.
UT’S LOPSIDED VISION CREATED HURDLES
Smriti Sharma,
The Tribune
While the UT administration may tout the Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park as one of its major achievements, in reality till date, it has not only failed to realize its full potential thanks to the lopsided vision of the powers that be, but have also given rise to numerous other problems which couldn’t be envisioned at that time.
From farmers crying hoarse over low compensation for their land acquired for the IT Park to the disinterest shown by the IT firms in establishing their setups, entry of the non-IT firms, growing discontentment among industrialists who paid crores for conversion of their plots under the UT’s conversion policy while the non-IT firms took over the premises in the IT Park, their commercial space in industrial area is still waiting for corporates to set up. All this, coupled with the recession- hit IT industry has proved to be a big blow for the aspirations with which the IT Park was set up.
While the land acquisition for Phase I was done much earlier, where nearly 80,000 sq ft was given to DLF for ready-to-built in sites, its still not fully rented out. Despite this fact, the land was acquired for phase II and I as well. Of all 13 Phase I built-to-suit sites that were to be completed and occupied by April 2007, not a single one is complete - a state repeated in Phase II.
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