Bengaluru:
On Thursday, Indian Information Technology Services corporation Wipro gave
a petition to the inter-ministerial Board of Approval here to set up a Special
Economic Zone (SEZ) for information technology and IT-enabled services in the
Rajarhat area near here.
While
it has in-principle approval from the SEZ authorities, the decision of the
state government is awaited. A company official met Bratya Basu, the state’s
new IT minister, on June 8 to push its case.“There seems to be a change in the
government’s outlook towards the SEZ,” a Wipro official told Business Standard.
Its facility in the Salt Lake Sector 5 area here, where it is constructing a
second building, has an SEZ status granted by the former Left Front government.
In
case the state government and the Board of Approval gives a go-ahead, it will
be Wipro’s second SEZ in West Bengal. In 2009, during the Left regime, Wipro
had approached the government to set up a 50-acre campus in Rajarhat, wanting
SEZ status. It was provided land in New Town, Rajarhat, at a concessional rate.
Wipro had invested Rs 75 crore to purchase land for the planned SEZ but it
didn’t make any headway with the change in government; new Chief Minister Mamata
Banerjee as opposed to the concept of SEZs.
In
this year’s election manifesto of the ruling Trinamool Congress, the party had
mooted plans for knowledge-based industries like IT and those that depend on
intellectual resources. In 2011, the Trinamool manifesto had said the
government would not allow SEZs, to protect multi-crop land.
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