Orissa achieves 36 pc growth in IT sector, IT urges for better infrastructure

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Bhubaneswar: Inaugurating the two-days Orissa.IT@2008 symposium on Wednesday, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said State Government would provide all sorts of help to the IT companies for setting up their units in the State. "Orissa is moving at a faster rate and has achieved a growth rate of 36 per cent per annum," Patnaik said.

ddressing the inaugural ceremony of two-day Orissa.IT@2008, a meet of IT industries, here on Wednesday, Pramod Bhasin, president and CEO of Genpact, Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO of Infosys, and Subroto Bagchi, co-founder of MindTree Consulting were univocal in their appeals.

They said, “let’s not repeat mistake done by major cities. More companies are coming. The IT development will explode now. You should be pro-active in putting the right infrastructure in place.”

“Quality of life in major cities is deteriorating. Traffic is woeful. Cities like Bhubaneswar have to be the fuel for growth. But our fear is if the city would be overtaken by the growth,” Mr. Bhasin said.

The Infosys CEO proposed that the State Government start working on metro train as it would become a difficult affair after a few years from now.

“The State Government should also increase student capacity in engineering colleges so that the growth in IT sector is supplemented by quality manpower,” Mr. Gopalakrishnan said.

He said, “an integrated plan should have to be formulated for infrastructure development and enhancement of skills. Then only in future we can look back and say we had done our bit.”

Mr. Bagchi, however, said people of Orissa were inclusive which made the city hot destination for IT growth. This was the reason why Bangalore could become IT capital of the country, he said.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Patnaik said Orissa was now ninth largest software exporting state in the country and the IT sector was growing at 35 per cent annually. “We are poised to grow at bigger pace in the sector,” he said.

Chief Minister said the State Government had given emphasis on IT-enhancing skills right from school to graduate level and appointed international IT consultancy agency to help it out. He on his part too urged the IT companies to set up their establishments in the State.

source: http://www.orissadiary.com/Shownews.asp?id=7360

Infosys Tech to set up an SEZ in Orissa

Infosys Technologies, the leading IT services and consulting company, plans to set up an Information Technology Special Economic Zone (ITSEZ) in Bhubaneswar with an estimated investment of Rs 300 to Rs 350 crore.

"We have applied to the Orissa government for setting up an ITSEZ in Bhubaneswar and requested the chief minister to provide the required land", T V Mohan Das Pai, director- Human Resources, Infosys, said. Emerging from a two hour long discussion with Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in the state secretariat, Pai said, the company has sought 50 acres of land for the project.

He said, the company proposes to invest about Rs 500 crore in the IT and ITeS sectors in Orissa. Out of this Rs 300-350 crore is earmarked for the SEZ. Infosys has such facilities in cities like Bangalore, Jaipur, Chennai and Pune.

Stating that Orissa is an important destination for the company, the Infosys HR head said, the company was the first to come to Orissa way back in 1995." We have a large stake in the state and want to grow in Orissa", he remarked.
He said, the company has about 3000 employees in its Bhubaneswar Development Centre. It recruited about 700 engineers from the state during the current year.

Besides, 200 persons were recruited by the BPO wing of the company including 45 from the economically backward Koraput district. Infosys also exported software worth Rs 642 crore from Orissa during the last fiscal.
Regarding his meeting with Patnaik, he said, it essentially pertained to issues like improving the employability of the Orissa youth, restructuring social sector schemes and improving the mid-day meal scheme.
A team consisting of leading heart surgeon Devi Prasad Shetty, Team Lease CEO, Manish Agarwal met Patnaik and made presentations. He said, Shetty runs the country's largest chain of health services for BPOs and wants to set up a very large heart hospital in Bhubaneswar. The chief minister was requested to facilitate the process.
Similarly, Agarwal made a presentation on improving the employability of the youth of Orissa. Patnaik suggested him to work in association with the Livelihood Mission of the Orissa government.

Regarding the other areas of the company's involvement Pai said, through Akshya Patro Foundation Infosys is providing mid-day meal to 30,000 children in Puri district and 10,000 children in Nayagarh district. The company intends to increase the number to 50,000 in Puri district next year. It has so far spent Rs 5.5 crore on various CSR initiatives in the state.

BHUBANESWAR - the fastest growing IT hub in India

Bhubaneswar has emerged as one of the fastest growing IT hub in India. The Govt has provided with adequate land for the development of IT parks like Infocity 1 & 2. The Info City Bhubaneswar was conceived as a five star park, under the Export Promotion Industrial Parks (EPIP) Scheme to create high quality infrastructure facilities for setting up Information Technology related industries. While Infosys and Satyam Computer Services Ltd. have been present in the city since 1996-97, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Wipro Technologies have acquired land in Infocity recently[citation needed]. This has earned the state capital in eastern India the unique distinction of having the presence of the big four i.e. Infosys, Satyam, TCS and Wipro. NetHawk has opened its research and development center in Bhubaneswar since April 2005. MindTree is also allotted 30 acres of land to start its business. On 5th Nov 2007 IBM announced its planning to kickstart its SME operation in Bhubaneswar.

In ASIC and Chip Design, ASIC Architect Inc and Perfectus Technology Inc are some of the popular international companies operating from Bhubaneswar. Silicatec is the VLSI training institute in the city.

Other major IT companies including Hexaware Technologies, Ramtech Systems etc have also finalised plans for starting operations at Bhubaneswar[

India's top most IT consulting firms, including Satyam Computer Services, TCS (Tata Consultancy Services), MindTree Consulting, Hexaware Technologies, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Infosys have large branches in Orissa. IBM, Syntel, Bosch and Wipro are setting up development centers in Orissa.

Orissa has abundant natural resources and a large coastline. It contains a fifth of India's coal, a quarter of its iron ore, a third of its bauxite reserves and most of the chromite. Rourkela Steel Plant[1] was the first integrated steel plant in the Public Sector in India. It receives unprecedented investments in steel, aluminium, power, refineries and ports. So far, two of the S&P CNX 500 conglomerates have corporate offices in Orissa viz. National Aluminium (2005 gross income Rs.51,162 million) and Tata Sponge Iron (2005 gross income Rs.2,044 million).

Orissa is notable as one of the first Indian states to have tackled its structural problems during the post 1994 Indian economic reforms. Orissa was the first state in India to begin to privatise its electricity transmission and distribution businesses. Over the period between 1994 and 2000 Orissa's former state electricity board (SEB) was restructured to form Gridco. This corporation was then divided into Transco and a collection of distribution companies. Attempts were then made to sell the distribution companies to the private sector. Like many other states, in 1996 Orissa was losing over 50% of the electricity it was delivered. The scale and importance of these reforms is notable and an important milestone in India's dramatic economic development.

Performance of Indian states in providing basic social services like education, healthcare, etc., in 2001. Darker states have done better.Recently the number of companies who have signed Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) to set up steel plants in the state has gone up to 50, including Posco of South Korea which has agreed to construct a mammoth $12 billion steel plant near Paradip port. It would be the largest single investment in India's history. Arcelor-Mittal has also announced plans to invest in another mega steel project amounting to $10 billion. Russian major Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Company (MMK) plans to set up a 10 MT steel plant in Orissa too. The state is attracting an unprecedented amount of investment in aluminum, coal-based power plants, petrochemicals, and information technology as well. In power generation, Reliance Industries (Anil Ambani Group) is putting up the world's largest power plant with an investment of US $13 billion at Hirma in Jharsuguda district. Vedanta Resources’ 1.4 million tonne alumina project in Kalahandi district is the largest investment in aluminium. Vedanta has also announced a $ 3.2 billion dollar huge private University project on the lines of the Ivy League Universities, which is unprecedented in the history of education in India.

The Central Government has agreed to accord SEZ (Special Economic Zone) status to eight sites in Orissa among which are Infocity at Bhubaneswar and Paradip.

Although Paradip is Orissa's only large port, the coastal towns of Dhamra and Gopalpur are being developed into major ports as well. The government of India has selected the coastal region of Orissa, stretching from Paradip in the north to Gopalpur in the south to be developed as one of the five or six Special Economic Regions (SERs) of the country. The government of India and the state government of Orissa would work together to erect world class infrastructure in this region along the lines of the Rotterdam, Houston, and Pudong regions. This would stimulate further private investment in petrochemicals, steel, and manufacturing. A recent Morgan Stanley report forecasts that Orissa would be flooded with massive investments for manufacturing related activities in the same manner that Bangalore had attracted software investment in the 1990s. The scale of the investments in Orissa would, however be much higher. As of July 2006, the total planned investment in the state is a whopping $90 billion. This includes some investment in research, education, hospitals, roads, ports, airports, and hotels. There are many multi-state irrigation projects in development, including Godavari River Basin Irrigation Projects.

Another SEZ coming up in IT sector for Orissa

Monday, April 07, 2008

Bhubaneswar: Another SEZ (Special Economic Zone) is coming up in the State in the IT sector. Currently, the State has four SEZs in this sector.

It would be set up in 25 acres of land in Bhubaneswar on a Public -Private Partnership (PPP) mode. Electronic and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ECS) and Larsen and Turbo (L&T) would provide the necessary support for establishment of the SEZ. Government will provide the land for this purpose. IT Minister Surjya Naryan Patro said the State Government has decided to set up 5 IT SEZs in the State and approached the Centre to get the required approval for notification. 1074 acres of land has earmarked for the development of IT services.

Till date Orissa has applied for 14 SEZs, of which 3 have been cleared, six given in principle clearance and five have received formal clearance from the Centre.

Meanwhile, the State Government has urged the Centre to sanction an Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) to boost growth of IT and IT enabled services. The ITIR is being planned in the State will house space for hardware manufacturing units other than having provisions for new integrated townships, special economic zone and industrial parks.

source: http://www.orissadiary.com/Shownews.asp?id=6358

Four new IITs, six IIMs to be set up

Fri, Mar 28 01:30 PM

In a bid to give an impetus to the higher education sector, Government on Friday decided to establish four new IITs and six IIMs in various states besides upgrading some of the state universities to the status of Central Universities.

While the new IITs would be located in Orissa, Madhya Pradesh (Indore), Gujarat and Punjab, the IIMs would come up in Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh (Raipur), Uttarakhand and Haryana.

These new institutions would be part of the eight IITs and seven IIMs proposed to be set up during the 11th Five Year Plan.

Government has already announced establishment of four IITs in Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Himachal Pradesh and one IIM at Shillong.

The location of the new higher education institutions has been approved by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, HRD Minister Arjun Singh told reporters in New Delhi.

In addition, he said the government proposed to convert the Institute of Technology of the Banaras Hindu University into an IIT. Admission to this Institute was already based on the IIT-Joint Entrance Examination.

Singh said it is also proposed to establish during the 11th five year plan period 14 Universities with world class standards and 16 universities in states which do not have a Central University at present.

Singh said the establishment of new IITs, IIMs and Central Universities was subject to state governments offering adequate land at suitable locations and free of cost.

The 14 Central Universities aiming at world class standards would be located in Pune, Kolkata, Coimbatore, Mysore, Visakhapatnam, Gandhinagar, Jaipur, Patna, Bhopal, Kochi, Amritsar, Bhubaneswar, Greater NOIDA and Guwahati.

The locations have been decided keeping in mind the connectivity and the infrastructure which such universities would need, he said.

The state governments would be requested to identify adequate land in or near the selected cities, Singh said adding the contour and shape of such world class universities would be defined shortly.

To a question whether the decision to set up these new institutions was based on political considerations, Singh said the government has decided on them after taking everything into consideration.

Dismissing a suggestion that Kerala has been left out in the exercise, he said the southern state has got a Central University and a world class university. "It is not correct that Kerala is left high and dry", he said.

source: http://in.news.yahoo.com/indianexpress/20080328/r_t_ie_nl_general/tnl-four-new-iits-six-iims-to-be-set-up-aaaedd4_1.html

News highlights 2007 - Orissa

Stepping into the portico of 2008, our mother land Orissa has carried along a great honor of achievements and reputation of being the fastest growing state of India during the year 2007. For the year 2007, it seems Lord Sri Jagannath and goddess Laxmi had favored Orissa. Results of an extremely efficient governance, in last 365 days, Orissa was gifted with

Investments pumped in : Rs. 178435.52 Crores
Ores and Minerals on trade : 196.92 million tones
Power sector boom up : 37250 Mega Watts

News highlights 2007 : ( in reverse chronological order )

• Orissa invests Rs 600 cr to minimise T&D losses
• Orissa develops power transmission system with Rs 600 cr
• Nalco investsRs 409 cr to upgrade mines, refinery
• Orissa to get its first shipyard worth Rs 2,200 crore
• Infosys donates 1 crore to IIIT, Bhubaneswar
• UN to spend USD 24 million for development in Orissa
• Orissa Govt. cleared Rs 120-crore sugar factory in Koraput region
• Navayuga group to set up 12 million tonne steel plant at Astaranga
• Orissa No – 1 investment desitnation in India, attracts Rs558 billion : ASSOCHAM study
• FACOR investsRs 2500 cr for expansion in Orissa
• Nalco achieved net profit of Rs 439.73 crore
• Rourkela Steel Plant to double production with an expansion worth 10,000 crores
• Ship factory at Dhamra to cost 2,200 crores
• Centre plans 4,000MW power plant in Orissa
• Orissa Sponge plans Rs 225-cr pref issue
• LIC AUM to cross Rs 100 cr in Orissa
• 100-bed facility for Care Hospital with cost of Rs 15 crores
• Orissa Govt to build Drama auditorium at cost of Rs. 12 crore
• Cuttack to get Rs 2,000 crore for facelift under JNNURM
• State to demand Rs. 1,000-crore allocation in railway budget
• SAIL invests49,000 crores in Orissa
• Essar Steel invests15,000 crores in Orissa by January
• SAIL quotes Rs 12,300 crore for Nilachal Ispat Nigam in Orissa
• 14 million tonne cargo handling capacity all-weather port at Puri
• UMPPs plans 9,000 MW mega power plant in Orissa
• NALCO profits Rs 2,381 crore for 2006-07
• Rs 594 crore infrastructure development of Cuttack city under ISDP
• ADB funds Rs 1,200 crore for Integrated Agriculture and Water Management project in Orissa
• Orissa gets Rs 1346 crore for rural dev programme
• Centre releases Rs. 256.91 crore to Orissa for Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana
• Over bridge at cost of Rs 144 crore to come up at Cuttack
• Gram panchayats to be linked with computers with Finance Commission grant of Rs 83 cr
• Ayush Hospital investsRs 13.5cr in Orissa project
• AP Govt to pay 1.55 cr as outstanding dues to Orissa
• Orissa govt. provided Rs 1,119 cr to improve road infrastructure
• Hindustan Construction bags Rs 168 cr Tata Steel order
• Centre okays Rs 50 lakh for development of Chausathi Yogini temple
• Kerala to build Rs 4,000-cr thermal station in Orissa
• Orissa targets Rs 6,000cr revenue
• Rs. 50 crores for Orissa Tourism
• 1000 km NH in Orissa to be made double lane
• RSP modernisation programme at cost of Rs 9,869 crore
• Orissa announced Biju Gram Jyoti Yojana, 10,000 villages to be electrified
• World Bank to fund Rs 1,400cr for Orissa roads
• Orissa Govt. nod to projects worth Rs 7,225 crore
• Orissa equipped to generate 20000 MW of power
• Jindal Stainless investsRs 5,600-cr for expansion of Orissa plant
• ACC's Orissa unit capacity to go up to 2.14mt
• Orissa Govt to collect additional Rs 1000 crore from VAT, entry tax
• Jindal Steel to set up 250 MW power plant at Kalinga Nagar
• OMC presented cheque of Rs 30 crore to CM
• Hyderabad firm plans Rs 6,000cr port at Astaranga
• State Govt. sanctioned 12 crore for Bhitarkanika, Satkosia sanctuaries
• BIG 92.7 FM to launch FM radio station in Bhubaneshwar
• PPT set to handle 106.40 Million tonne cargo by 2012
• 51 Steel companies sign MoU in Orissa
• Finance minister Ghadei presented Rs 14,000-cr vote-on-account
• UGC grants Rs 96 cr for girls hostel in Orissa
• Economy grew at 7.3 percent, revenue surplus after 22 yrs in Orissa
• ADB to provide $200 m for irrigation projects
• Nalco to contribute Rs 5 cr for renovation of "Ananda Bazaar" at Sri Jagannath Temple
• NTPC to set up 4000 MW coal-fired ultra mega power plant in Orissa
• Orissa Govt to get Rs 800 cr from Japan bank
• Allocation for Orissa goes down; gets only Rs 606 crore
• Planning Commission grants Rs 5105 cr to Orissa
• Foreign tourist inflow to Orissa increase by 13 percent
• Paradip port handles record 33.12 million tons of cargo
• State raked Rs 270 crore from sales of kendu leaf
• Jindal Steel net jumps 50% by setting 6 million tonne steel plant, Orissa
• NEW ULTRA MEGA POWER PROJECT with a capacity of 4,000 mw will come up in Orissa
• State got extra revenue of Rs 3,500 cr: Experts pointed out
• Centre allocates 199 cr for Sadak Yojana in Orissa
• million sports complex in Orissa
• BHEL plans Rs 3,200 cr investment for expansion in Orissa
• McNally Bharat bags Rs 923.1 mn order from Utkal Alumina International
• Rs 2,000 cr port to come up at Kirtania in Bhograi
• Orissa targets to take IT exports to Rs 2,500 cr in 5 yrs
• SAIL expands with 6 more projects worth Rs 670 Cr
• 21 pvt medical colleges get NOC

source: http://nilachakra.50webs.com