Minister of IT&C Nara Lokesh claimed that there is a boom in IT sector in the Andhra Pradesh particularly with more than 30 companies coming forward in the past 90 days. He also promised that they will generate three lakh jobs in the next two years.
However, the figures related to the IT exports are not reflecting the hype created by the government. In erstwhile AP, IT exports attributed to ₹61500crore with Telangana’s share being ₹60000crore while AP contributed ₹1500crore. Three years down the lane, post bifurcation, IT exports of TS have increased to ₹1lakh crore while that of AP is ₹2000crore.
Vice President of the IT Park Association O Naresh Kumar told DC, that the low numbers are due to the IT policy which is appealing on paper but the realization has a lot of room for improvements. He also said that there are neither office spaces nor do the firms receive incentives as assured.
Power Minister K Kala Venkata Rao said that the state is spending ₹3,600crore on modernization of the power sector. However, though the tariff is ₹6.5per unit in AP, after adding hidden charges it is coming to ₹9.5per unit which the highest in the country.
Vishakapatnam contributes 80% of the ₹2000crore while the remaining comes from Kakinada and Tirupati. Reacting to the accusations that the state failed to attract IT industry, Lokesh earlier this week, said the names of the candidates who secured jobs will be uploaded in a portal.
Despite leaders promising several jobs and inaugurating many firms, most of them are small Indian consulting firms which do body shopping abroad. There were no real big companies which will make a substantial contribution to exports. The IT Minister hopefully uploads the data or cites reasons for the snail pace in IT exports.
