Hyderabad: Close on the heels of the approval of the Hyderabad Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR), which is now mired in a controversy, the state government has proposed the setting up of another ITIR to be set up in Chittoor and Anantapur districts.
According to state IT minister Ponnala Laxmaiah, two locations in Chittoor district and one in Anantapur are likely to be developed for the ITIR.
These include 4,000 acres near Tirupati (at Manna-varam, where a Rs 6,000 crore NTPC-BHEL power project is coming up), and a 4,000-acre near the Chittoor industrial cluster, where 12,000 acres of land have been acquired.
The third IT zone is to come up on 4,000 acres of land in Anantapur district. A high-level inter-departmental meeting will be held on Saturday to prepare the proposals. The ITIRs will be on the lines of the one approved for Hyderabad.
The internal infrastructure expenditure for creation of projects in the proposed ITIR will be met by the state government from its annual Plan funds and programmes.
The ITIR at Hyderabad became a topic of controversy, as it was announced just after the proposal to bifurcate the state.
Seemandhra leaders had questioned the motive of locating another major project again at Hyderabad, an established IT hub, while there was much anguish over the status of the capital. The ITIR proposal, however, was in the works for two years.
At the Tirupati-Anantapur ITIR, internal infrastructure, cost of widening of national highways, refurbishing airports, telecom facilities, Metro or MMTS connectivity will be funded by the Centre under the public-private-participation mode.
Ministers may seek package
Guntur: Union minister for state for petroleum Panabaka Lakshmi on Monday said that Union ministers from Seemandhra will meet in Delhi within three days to discuss the package to be demanded from the Centre, if it goes ahead with bifurcation of the state.
Speaking to this newspaper, Lakshmi said they would give top priority to the irrigation and drinking water issue and also to employment, and request the Centre to sanction a special package for Seemandhra.
Ms Lakshmi made it clear that they would ask the Centre to set up IITs, IIM, a Central University, an international airport and develop airports and ports in Seemandhra.
She also said that the Union ministers would ask the Centre to set up more industries and software companies to provide employment to engineering graduates in the Seemandhra districts.
She felt that Hyderabad should be given the status of a Union Territory for the safety and security of the Seemandhra people.
Ms Lakshmi said, “We will mount pressure on the Centre to keep the state united. If division of state is inevitable, we will request a special package for the development of Seemandhra.”
She said that after the discussions, all the Union ministers from Seemandhra will prepare a memorandum which will be submitted to the Group of Ministers (GoM) and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and AICC president Sonia Gandhi.
She said they would submit their memorandum to the GoM before its next meeting.
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