The Captain Amarinder Singh government’s investment efforts got a further fillip on Wednesday with 14 IT/ITES companies getting the nod for allotment of sites in the Mohali IT City, paving the way for an investment of more than Rs. 750 crore and generation of direct employment to the tune of nearly 1500 professionals.A high-powered committee, chaired by Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh, scrutinized the applications of companies, with an annual turnover ranging from Rs. 25 crore to Rs. 1100 crores, at PUDA Bhawan on Wednesday to shortlist the 14 companies for land allotment in the IT hub. This will take the total number of companies allotted land so far in the SAS Nagar (Mohali) IT City to 46.
Other members of the Scrutiny Committee involved in examining and shortlisting the applications, which had been pending for more than a year, included Secretaries of the Departments of Housing & Urban Development, Finance, Industry, IT, Science & Technology and Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Punjab and Additional Director of Software Technology Park of India (STPI). Chief Administrator, GMADA is Member Secretary of the Committee.
Disclosing details, an official spokesperson said the applicant companies had shown interest in buying plots measuring 0.5 acre to 25 acres on the 278 acres reserved for allotment to IT/ITES companies from the total area of 1672 acres. Of the remaining, another 248 acres has been reserved for residential colonies while the rest has been kept for commercial, institutional, public buildings, mix land use, area under reserve and land under road network. As per the IT policy of the Department of Housing & Urban Development, in order to facilitate the promotion of IT industry in Mohali, allotment of majority of the plots is done at reserve price on the basis of clearly laid down eligibility criteria, instead of auctioning the plots. The reserve price of the land, allotted on freehold basis beginning from Rs. 2.25 crore per acre for bigger plots goes up to Rs. 5.00 crore for plots measuring upto 1.00 acre. The price is payable in easy instalments spread over a period of more than 7 years. The policy provides for construction of an IT Mall to accommodate small entrepreneurs and startup companies. An international township would be constructed for the employees of multinational companies.
At present, the tri-city region has 170 IT/ITES units predominantly in Small Medium Entrepreneur (SMEs) sectors. The exports from the region has already crossed 3866.00 crore (2016-17), creating employment opportunity for 35,000 professionals. IT companies operating from Mohali include Edifecs, Seaasia Consultants IDS Infotech, Nath Outsourcing, Quark, Smartdata, Kiran Foreign Trade, Emerson Electric, SPAN Infotech, to mention a few.S.A.S Nagar (Mohali) is emerging as the next Information Technology (IT) hub after Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai and Gurgaon. Availability of skilled manpower; road, rail & air connectivity; excellent urban infrastructure; improved power supply; world-class communication facilities and conducive environment have attracted IT companies from far flung areas, including Hyderabad, to set up their operations here.