With concerns growing over the Karnataka government's commitment to develop an Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) near the Bangalore airport, the state chief minister Siddaramaiah announced on Thursday that a final notification for acquisition of 2072 acres of land would be done by the end of this year. The announcement followed a meeting the chief minister held with the state high level committee for IT investment clearances. The ITIR spread over some 40 square km near the international airport has been in the making for over six years. It has been mired in controversy after ministers in the former BJP government in the state were found to have indulged in insider trading by acquiring large quantities of cheap land from farmers with the intent of cashing on the price boom after the ITIR was announced. Over 55 software and hardware companies, including leading ones like Infosys, TCS and Wipro, had initially shown interest in setting up shop at the ITIR but companies such as Infosys had withdrawn due to delays in the project and after the company acquired land around its existing facilities. The one-year-old Congress government in Karnataka has in recent days been criticized for failing to get a move on implementation of the ITIR project initated in 2008. The project was initiated by the BJP government under B S Yeddyurappa after the UPA government created a policy resolution for setting up information technology investment regions on May 28, 2008. The ITIR is intended to promote investment in IT, IteS and electronic hardware manufacturing units which are key to economic growth. It is expected to attract good IT companies to set up base and expand operations in Bangalore. The ITIR land is to be acquired under new land acquisition laws where private companies would have to pay market prices for the land notified for acquisition. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Thursday that all impediments to the ITIR project would be removed by the Congress government. He said that 12 lakh people would be directly employed at the ITIR by 2020 and 28 lakh would be indirectly employed. Siddaramaiah said that Infosys had decided against being at ITIR a while ago on account of the lack of basic infrastructure and had decided to acquire land near Electronic City. The chief minister said that the state government was willing to go to any extent to help Infosys grow its business in Karnataka. "Apart from the 40 acres offered at the ITIR we are now offering an additional 60 acres of land to Infosys at ITIR,'' Siddaramaiah said. Nearly 70 per cent of work on development of road connectivity to the ITIR had been completed and instructions had been issued to complete rest of the work by December along with provision for water supply and 40 MW of power as sought by Infosys, Siddaramaiah said. Siddaramaiah was reacting to recent reports that Infosys was planning to move new investments to Andhra Pradesh after being wooed by IT savvy AP chief minister Chandrababu Naidu. The Karnataka chief minister said that reports of Infosys moving out of Karnataka were false. "Infosys is a child Karnataka. I am confident it will never leave Karnataka. Whatever is needed will be done to help the company do smooth business,'' he said.
