SHIMLA: Ten companies have shown interest in setting up an IT city in Himachal Pradesh. The expressions of interest (EOIs) were sought in May 2006 and the companies which have evinced interest include DLF Universal, Gurgaon; Parsvanath Developers, Uppal Housing, Omaxe Infotech City Developers and Negolice India, New Delhi; IVRCL Infrastructure and Projects and Maheshwari Mega Ventures, Hyderabad; Skil Infrastructure and Zoom Developers, Mumbai and Compact Disc India, Chandigarh.

The project will involve an investment of nearly Rs 200 crore assuming that one lakh sq metre of built up area and construction of other common facilities such as internal roads, streetlights, ETP and green patches are taken into account and an IT habitat is also proposed to be part of the IT park.

The park is proposed to be built over 126 acres of land and the areas identified include Waknaghat in Solan, Nalagarh near Baddi, Raja-Ka-Bagh in Kangra, Nagri in Kantra and Dalhousie in Chamba.

The project is to be operated on commercial format of build, own, operate basis(BOO). Indications are that the IT park may be set up in two locations. The whole or part of the IT park may even be run as a special economic zone (SEZ) for which the state government shall provide all facilitation including requisite government clearances.

When asked what will be the next step, IT and LEP secretary Sanjeev Gupta, said, “Now it will be request for proposal (RFP). This will take 4-6 weeks’ time.”

What is noteworthy is that Nasscom has rated Himachal very high on 9 out of 13 parameters in its countrywide survey. It has projected annual turnover of Rs 20,000 crore by March 31, 2010, from software and services. Should this happen then Himachal has much to cheer.

The state’s USP is its almost nil job attrition rate unlike high attrition rates in IT cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad. Besides, says Mr Gupta, “We have uninterrupted, cheap and good quality power supply coupled with nearly 8,000 km out of 13,000 km of metalled road with nX2 mpbs optical fibre cable(OFC) network making it the highest density in the country.”

Added to this is central excise duty exemption for 10 years, nil sales tax on IT products, income tax holiday for five years and 30% rebate thereafter, even for domestic operations and DGFT registered units.

Moreover, the government will give all software and service units including training institutes an industry status. However, what lacks in Himachal is proper air connectivity. The state has only three airports at Shimla, Bhuntar and Gaggal, which are in need of upgradation to land bigger aircraft.