Gujarat emerging as IT hub, claim experts

Nov 16, 2007, 11:42 GMT

Ahmedabad, Nov 16 (IANS) Gujarat is fast becoming a major IT hub in India, said industry experts here Friday. Their comments came in the wake of union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal's comment Monday that Gujarat was lacking in the IT sector.

IT players in the state hotly contested Sibal's views. They said although Gujarat was a late starter, it had taken several steps to catch up with the leaders and will soon be counted as the major IT hub of India.

Ashesh Shah, founder of software firm E Cubes, said IT industry was surging ahead in the state thanks to strong government support.

'Players who have located their operations in Gujarat are happy with the way things were moving. In the next six to eight months, people will experience the force of IT industry in the state,' said Shah.

The western region head of SAP, Tanmay Ayare, said that there was now keen awareness in Gujarat that IT was the backbone of all operations. 'There is a strong movement in the state to have the IT backbone,' Ayare said.

Kaushal Mehta, CEO of city-based BPO firm Motif, said IT had a strong presence in Gujarat.

'There are chip design companies, frontline BPOs as well as KPOs. Globally branded firms have their presence in Gujarat. Nasscom (National Association of Software and Services Companies) has ranked Ahmedabad to be among the top five Indian destinations for business process and knowledge process outsourcing,' Mehta stressed.

Industry players in the state pointed out the fact that the IT Summit held in December 2006 was extremely successful.

Nineteen companies signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) for investments totalling Rs.110.67 billion at the summit.

Of the 19 companies, nine were IT park developers, one telecom service provider and nine software and ITeS companies.

Notable among them were Nipiam InfoTech with plans for an IT park in Vadodara with an investment of Rs.26 billion.

Fascel Ltd (Hutch) inked an intent to invest Rs.25 billion for setting up a 2,500-seat call centre, putting up a 4,500 km optical fibre network for lease line solutions and setting up retail points across the state for providing GSM and enterprise solutions.

The other bigwigs included DLF Commercial, which will set up three IT parks - in Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad and Vadodara.

Aqualine Properties Ltd, part of the Raheja Corp, signed in for an investment of Rs.12 billion to set up an IT special economic zone in Gandhinagar.

© 2007 Indo-Asian News Service