Four new STPI centres to come up in Odisha

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Nov 5:

Odisha government today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) for setting up of four more centres in the state.

The agreement was signed at the conference hall of the state secretariat here. The new centres would come up at Angul, Jajpur, Koraput and Sambalpur districts. With this, the number of such centres will rise to eight, which is highest in the country.

The existing centres are at Bhubaneswar, Rourkela, Berhampur and Balasore.

“The proposed STPI centres would act as resource centres for IT/ITES and ESDM sector by offering general infrastructural facilities like ready to use Incubation Hi-Speed Data connectivity and other amenities required export of software and services. The incubation facility will be available for entrepreneurs, specially catering to the need of start-up/MSMEs/SMEs to kick start their business without any hassles,” Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said.

I hope that the construction works for the proposed STPI centres will commence soon. I am confident that the new STPI centres in these cities would facilitate and support the entrepreneurs to explore global opportunities in IT/ITES & ESDM sector and boost up direct and indirect employment creation in the state. I congratulate the Electronics & IT department, STPI and OCAC in this endeavor.

Notably, IT exports from the state is reported at Rs 2900 crore during the year 2015-16 and achieved national prominence in the IT map of the country. Around 90% of software exports from the state are contributed by STPI.

The state government would provide 3 acres of developed land and minimum 20,000 sq ft built-up space for each centre.

Electronics and Information Technology Minister Pranab Prakash Das, Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi, Development Commissioner R Balakrishnan, STPI Director General Omkar Rai were present on the occasion.