Moreover,
the government is offering land and other incentives to
investors to set up IT firms in smaller towns and cities
away from Bangalore
M
N Vidyashankar, information technology secretary, government
of Karnataka, told reporters, "We are working on
a hub-and-spoke model to attract investments in the knowledge
sector with a two-pronged strategy. By positioning Bangalore
as the hub and tier-two cities across the state as spokes,
we want to ensure Karnataka remains the favourite IT destination
in India."
"The
new strategy will also help de-congest Bangalore and facilitate
the uniform growth of secondary cities like Mysore, Mangalore,
Hubli, Belgaum and Gulbarga with infrastructure, connectivity
and human resources," Vidyashankar added.
While
Bangalore remains the favoured destination among IT multinationals,
the government has reserved 10,000 acres of land at Bidadi,
about 30km from the hi-tech city, for IT and IT-enabled
services, including outsourcing and call centres.
The
infrastructure will be developed with private partnership
and 32 domestic and international infrastructure firms,
including foreign firms, have bid for the global tender
floated by the government.
A
second project has developed around the international
airport at Devanahalli, about 35 km from Bangalore, with
the Karnataka Industrial Development Board in the process
of building an electronic hardware technology park over
1,400 acres of land near the airport.
The
first phase of the park, spread over 450 acres, will be
developed in the next 12 months to coincide with the launch
of the Bangalore international airport in April 2008.
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