UP govt said coming soon,but has no proposal,no developer

In less than a month,the Uttar Pradesh governments grand plan to set up an Information Technology Special Economic Zone in Lucknow has turned out to be a non-starter.

In less than a month,the Uttar Pradesh governments grand plan to set up an Information Technology (IT) Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Lucknow has turned out to be a non-starter. Officials say the announcement on May 20 was made at a time when the authorities concerned did not have anything on their platter a plan,a formal proposal or even a potential developer.

The idea of setting up an IT SEZ in Lucknow was long promoted by the industry as well as IT professionals in Lucknow. A few months ago,representatives from CII,along with TCS principal consultant Jayant Krishna met officials to push forward with the idea.

Later,members of the Association of Knowledge Workers,Lucknow (AKWL) approached officials of the IT department and reportedly told them that about 25 small IT companies would like to buy land and start operations in Lucknow.

On May 20,the government made the announcement that an IT SEZ,spread over 25 acres,would be set up in Gomtinagar Extension in Lucknow and that several big companies were interested in starting units there.

Next,on May 25,members of the AKWL met the chief secretary for a detailed discussion. Senior officers of several other departments were present. It was here that the government realised that while there were people interested in starting IT operations,there was neither a formal proposal for setting up the IT SEZ nor any potential developer for the same.

Explaining the faux pas,an official said: There has to be a proposal to develop an SEZ. It has to be sent to the Industrial Development department,which scrutinises it on the basis of the Uttar Pradesh SEZ (Amendment) Rules 2007. The proposal then goes to a committee headed by the chief secretary and is then forwarded to the Centre for approval.

Interestingly,Chandra Prakash,Principal Secretary,Information Technology,now denies having any knowledge of the official press release issued in the matter.

Story continues below this ad

We never finalised an SEZ here. We are still searching the possibilities of developing Lucknow as an IT hub. There are various options that we are looking into and SEZ is just one of them, he said.

Prakash added: Sometime ago,members of the Association of Knowledge Workers had come to me claiming that about 25 IT companies are willing to be part of developing Lucknow into an IT hub. We are looking into their proposal.

Having attended the meeting with the chief secretary,Association of Knowledge Workers secretary Dileep Kumar said: We are just facilitators. Being the Association of Knowledge Workers,we collected proposals from some small Lucknow-based companies who were interested in purchasing land in an IT SEZ. We communicated this to the government during the meeting with the chief secretary.

Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram

Tags:
IT
SEZ

UP govt said coming soon,but has no proposal,no developer

In less than a month,the Uttar Pradesh governments grand plan to set up an Information Technology Special Economic Zone in Lucknow has turned out to be a non-starter.

In less than a month,the Uttar Pradesh governments grand plan to set up an Information Technology Special Economic Zone in Lucknow has turned out to be a non-starter.