HIMACHAL CABINET NOD TO GREEN IT HUB
Charanjit Ahuja, Chandigarh
The Financial Express
The Himachal Pradesh cabinet has cleared setting up of the state’s first information technology park, green IT hub. The state government plans to set up five IT parks -- at Waknaghat and Nalagarh in Solan district, Palampur and Nurpur in Kangra district and Dalhousie in Chamba district. The cabinet note said, “The Himachal Pradesh cabinet has decided to float tenders to invite open bids from private players to design, develop, build an information technology park as Green IT Hub of world-class standards.”
The proposed Green IT Hub would be set up over 65 acres of government land at Waknaghat with an estimated investment of Rs 460 crore. The cabinet note claimed that the proposed IT hub would provide jobs to about 25,000 educated, unemployed youth of the state. It said financial capability and experience would be the criteria for determining the eligibility of the bidder, while the state government shall act as facilitator and provide external infrastructural facilities only.
Officials at the Himachal chief minister’s office told FE that at least 12 companies have shown interest in preparing a plan and determine the costs for setting up the state’s first IT hub. These include DLF Universal, Parsvanath Developers, SKIL Infrastructure, RVRCL Infrastructure, Uppal Housing, Maheshwari Mega Ventures and Omaxe Infrastructure City Development, among others
The proposed IT hubs would be in addition to a nano biosystem technology park to be set up at Aduwal near Nalagarh in Solan district.
RIL PLANS SEZ AT MOHALI
Chandigarh
The Tribune
Reliance Industries (RIL) and YellowStone Infra is coming up with an IT SEZ in Mohali. The SEZ will have Satyam Computers as its anchor company.
An official press release said they were in the process of land acquisition for the company, and the project will be launched by October this year. “The SEZ will be spread across 125 acres. We have already got the change in land use (CLU) and have acquired more than 50 percent of the land needed for the SEZ,” it said. The release further said that they were in talks with other IT majors like US-based ETech and CM Software, Amadeus Software and Moksha BPO for setting base in the SEZ. The total investment in the SEZ will be around Rs 940 crore. The promoters are also in talks with a leading hospitality chain to set up a five-star hotel in the SEZ.
S K BIRLA CO PICKS UP SPACE AT RMZ FACILITY
Sumali Moitra, Kolkata
The Times of India (Kolkata edition)
Commercial real estate major RMZ Corp on Tuesday said it has signed up S K Birla Group firm VXL Technologies as a client for its upcoming IT park project at Rajarhat and added that it stayed committed to put up 10 lakh sq ft of office space at the chosen site by next year.
“VXL Technologies has picked up 10,000 sq ft at our Kolkata facility. The deal happened very recently,” RMZ vice-president (leasing) Juggy Marwaha said from Bangalore, while not elaborating on the deal terms.
Incorporated in 1966, VXL Technologies is an active player in the networking and communications arena. While its design centre is based in Birla Buildings in Kolkata, manufacturing operations are undertaken from Faridabad. “We will move part of the Faridabad operations to the RMZ facility so that there is better coordination between the design centre and the manufacturing function,” Birla Eastern president B D Bose said.
“At a time when a lot of companies are moving out of Kolkata, the move is a demonstration of our faith in the city,” Bose added. Birla Eastern is one of the holding entities of the S K Birla Group.
“We will be ready with our first building of 1.8 lakh sq ft by September, of which 1.3 lakh sq ft has been already booked by McNally Bharat Engineering (jointly owned by the B M Khaitan and GP-C K Birla groups), and 30,000 sq ft has been earmarked for an incubation centre,” Marwaha said. “Construction is already on at another building of 2 lakh sq ft, which should be in place by November,” he added.