Telangana plans IoT clusters and e-waste recycling, to generate 50,000 new jobs

The Telangana government on Tuesday announced two major initiatives, including  a programme on Internet of Things (IoT) and another on e-waste recycling, as part of the 10 major focus areas of the state's IT policy launched last year, aiming to provide employment to 50,000 people in the next five years.

The state government plans to create five IoT clusters each in three districts, which is estimated to attract investments of around Rs10,000 crore.

The IoT policy aims at positioning the state as a leader in the area, state IT minister K T Rama Rao said at an event jointly organised by the state government and industry body FICCI.

"...the IoT policy brings out the state's intent to position itself as a global leader in the IoT space by setting up a comprehensive  ecosystem for IoT, and how the government intends to use these technologies through multiple departments and agencies," Rao said in his address.

The e-waste policy, also announced by Rao, calls for earmarking industrial space or sheds for dismantling and recycling e-waste in existing and upcoming industrial parks, estates and industrial clusters.

"We aim to develop world-class infrastructure to promote the development of IoT products and IoT-based solutions. Hence, we will create five zones each in Hyderabad, Warangal and Sricilla districts for deployment of points of contact (PoCs) in the IoT space," Rao said.

The IoT policy will focus on developing solution for programmes, including smart city, medical and health, smart logistics and agri-tech. The state government is developing a hardware prototyping centre, to be called TWorks. The prototyping centre will partner corporates and laboratories to access testing tools and other prototyping equipment specific to IoT.

"We plan to promote manufacturing and procurement of IoT-based solutions through government procurement of products and services and having a customs facilitation centre to reduce the time to import/export parts for IoT-based solutions," said Rao.

He said the government would promote management of e-waste through collaborations with bulk consumers of electronic products, major industry organisations and other stakeholders.

The government would also provide incentives to boost refurbishing and recycling centres. A subsidy of Rs 1 crore will be provided for a minimum investment of Rs5 crore for the first five recyclers and refurbishers.

Apart from that, it also plans to give 25 per cent subsidy on lease rentals for every company for the first three years of operation and provide Rs1,000 as training subsidy per person every month for 1,000 people.