Telangana govt to unveil new IT policy

The Telangana government plans to unveil a new Information Technology (IT) policy to make Hyderabad the most attractive IT destination in the country and increase IT/ITES exports besides creating new jobs, state IT Minister K T Rama Rao said today.

“IT policy has been under preparation for a while now. Our Chief Minister (K Chandrasekar Rao) was not able to review the IT department so far.

But, I am hopeful that it will happen soon and IT policy has to go back to Cabinet. Once the CM reviews it will go back to Cabinet for approval and will be then announced,” Rama Rao told reporters here.

Speaking after releasing the annual report of Telangana’s IT department, he said in 2014-15, the IT/ITES exports from Telangana was Rs 66,276 crore which recorded 15.7 per cent growth as compared to previous year wherein the IT/ITES exports stood at Rs 57,258 crore.

“This was 2.7 per cent more compared to the all India growth in IT/ITES exports,” he said, adding that Hyderabad stands in second position in the country by contributing 11per cent of nationwide IT exports.

During 2014-15, the employment in the IT/ITES sector rose to 3,71,774, up from 3,23,396 when compared to the previous fiscal, he added.

Reacting to another query, he said, “First, we have to realise in pursuit of new investments typically we tend to forget the existing players, who may have lot of expansion plans which is what I have realised in the last one year.

“There are lot of existing players who are looking to expand as they have already invested in Hyderabad. We have reached to all the IT majors and most of them have promised expansion.”

Telangana aims to double the IT/ITES exports in next five years (by 2019) to Rs 1.20 lakh crore, Rama Rao said, adding that among the future plans, Telangana is planning ‘Digital Telangana state’ wherein every house will have an Internet connection.