Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government has decided to promote Coimbatore and Hosur as ideal destinations for information technology (IT) and information technology-enabled services (ITES) units along with Chennai.

While Coimbatore has started attracting ITES units, Hosur is a new addition. Hosur being next door to Bangalore is expected to gain from the latter's spillover. It is to be noted that IT industry is now looking at cities other than Bangalore because of its high real estate cost.

According to Vivek Harinarain, IT secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu, a special purpose vehicle is to be promoted to build an IT park in Coimbatore. The state IT department has got 27 acres belonging to Coimbatore Medical College.

The SPV will be promoted by two government undertakings to build a 2.,500,000-sq.ft facility. "The project cost is estimated to be around Rs50 crore," Harinarain exxplains.

With Chennai silently attracting more IT and ITES outfits, the state government is planning to build a knowledge industry township (KIT) on the outskirts. "The main purpose of the township is to avoid the city getting congested. The township will contain everything needed for people to live."

The first phase will be built on 520 acres and the second phase will involve another 500 acres. According to Sudeep Jain, managing director, Elcot Limited, the total built up area in KIT will be around 650 acres after considering the space required for roads and other common facilities.

As a part of its attempts to attract ITES investments, the state government is in the process of finalising a separate policy document. According to Harinarain, the policy will address the requirements of ITES units; steps to improve the language proficiency amongst other things.

On e-governance, the state government has sent three proposals to the centre for funding assistance. They are rural connectivity, the Tamil Nadu State wide area network and
e-delivery of services.

"For the wide area network the outlay is estimated to be around Rs42 crore. The other two projects will involve an investment of Rs8 crore," says Harinarain.

According to him, permission to construct around 5 million sq.ft has been given by the government to the IT units. "Construction work on 2.2 million sq.ft has already started and work on 2.8 million sq.ft is under progress."

It should be noted that Chennai is attracting all the IT majors. Infosys Technologies Limited has decided to set up the world's largest software facility with an area of 3.5 lakh sq metres in 129 acres in the Mahindra Park. Soon Wipro sent its request to the state government for 100 acres.

Cognizant Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies, Hexaware Technolgies, Satyam Infoway Limited, Polaris Software Lab Limited and many others are expanding in Chennai.

According to Harinarain, the software exports from Tamil Nadu is on the rise. For the current fiscal the software exports from the state is expected to touch Rs7,750 crore as against the previous year's figure of Rs6,400 crore.