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N Venugopal
04 July 2002 |
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Hyderabad: Apparently realising its inability, after 10 years, to compete with its mighty rivals in software development, products, services and hardware, the Andhra Pradesh state government has taken different initiatives to locate itself on the world information technology map. This time it is setting up an agency to promote the state as a possible hub for IT-enabled services (ITES).
 The agency has been christened as APFirst (Agency for Promotion and Facilitation of Investments in Remote Services and Technology), keeping in tune with Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidus penchant for attractive nomenclature for his pet projects. The agency aims to secure as much share as possible from the estimated one million jobs to be created in ITES and business process outsourcing (BPO) segments.
Though the ITES and BPO segments are low-end and low-paid jobs, the government had to take this decision to attract investments in these areas as the unemployment levels in the state are on the rise. APFirst follows the Information Technology Enabled Services Policy announced by the state government in January 2002.
 APFirst will be a government-private initiative, with Randeep Sudan, special secretary on IT to the chief minister, as its CEO. He will be supported by a management team from the private sector. The agency acts as a single point interface to ITES companies for all regulatory approvals and other facilities.
The board of APFirst consists of CEOs of leading ITES companies, including Compaq, ICICI One source, EXL Services, Mphasis, AXA, E Funds and Infotech Enterprises. The state already hosts a couple of global ITES players like GE Capital Services, ADP, HSBC and Deloitte Consulting.
 APFirst plans to market the available opportunities for ITES companies in the state as well. It will also provide high-quality trained talent pool, pass enabling regulations, and create state-of-the-art infrastructure.
As part of providing training facilities, APFirst had also set up an institute for IT-enabled services training and completed a pilot training programme. The agency had also tied up with Hero Mindmine and NIIT Smartserve for ITES/BPO training operations in Hyderabad.
 As part of the APFirst initiative, the state government had also drafted the Data Protection and Consumer Privacy Act with the help of the legal firm Amarchand, Mangaldas and Shroff. This Act is the first of its kind in India and will be tabled in the state legislature shortly. The government also amended relevant laws to take permission to run an establishment round the year, to employ women during night and to employ persons in the age group of 18 to 21.
The government also signed memorandums of understanding with the Raheja group to develop 4 million sft of office space, Ma Foi Services for manpower recruiting, Insignia Brooke for real estate consultancy, Vanenburg IT Park for turnkey business set-up, and Global Telesystems for telecom services.
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