By Sunitha Natti
The Government of Telangana has cracked the whip on IT companies in the city for failing to set up operations in the allotted land and for not creating promised jobs in the given time. About 20-odd companies, including multi-nationals (names withheld on request) and home grown majors like Visual Soft Technologies, Aryabhatta Solutions Ltd, Sify Technologies Ltd, Neuland Laboratories Ltd and Indu Tech Zone have been slapped with notices last month.
The government has even identified fraudulent companies, which were allotted land to set up support services like hotels in and around the IT corridor. Notices have been issued to Nightingale Hotels Pvt Ltd, VZone Hospitality Pvt Ltd, Palnadu Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, JT Holding Pvt Ltd and Prakruthi Infrastructure Pvt Ltd under support services category. “We have issued notices.. including to some fake companies, and we will go after them. There are some large companies, who are yet to fulfil their job creation obligation, but we do understand that these companies will add employees sooner or later,” K T Rama Rao, Minister for IT & Communications (IT&C), declining to disclose names. He said the idea was not to seize land from companies who have partially complied. “We want them (companies) to adhere to time-bound commitments and that’s the intent,” Rao said. As per the IT Policy, companies seeking one acre have to build 50,000 sft office space and hire 500 employees.
According to Harpreet Singh, Secretary, Department of IT&C, the average land allotted to companies served with notices was 2-4 acres. “But in the case of Indu Tech, about 200-250 acres was allotted at the IT Hardware park. The Telangana Industrial Infrastructure Corporation has been given orders to cancel land allotment,” Singh said adding a few companies who were alloted land couldn’t set up operations due to lack of approvals — a case in point is online retail giant Amazon IT Services India, which was given 10.57 acres at Nanakramguda in 2005 to build a 1.6 million square feet facility.
Source: The New Indian Express