Chandigarh, January 1
IT’s here. Punjab’s Information Technology (IT) Policy 2009, which replaces the state’s 2003 IT policy, intends to roll out the red carpet for IT and IT-enabled service (ITES) providers to set up base in the state.
Starting with free land offers and subsidies on capital investment to exemptions from zoning restrictions, conversion charges, electricity duty, stamp duty and registration charges, the new IT policy has outdone all previous policies in offering
incentives.
It promises to allot land with a 100 per cent rebate on the plot’s cost to those who want to set up a mega IT unit on 10 acre of land with an investment of at least Rs 25 crore and employing 250 persons per acre.
This rebate, however, would successively reduce in case the IT unit employs a lower number of persons than specified. These employees would have to be in Rs 5,000 and above salary bracket and the employment level would have to be sustained for two years. Such a unit would also have to give a bank guarantee to the government.
In another major attraction, the proposal also gives complete exemption to IT units from the prevailing zoning regulations in the state. This means that an IT unit can now come up virtually anywhere in Punjab; on agricultural, commercial, residential, institutional land and of course industrial land. All such units have been exempted from payment of conversion charges, also known as the change of land use charges. These exemptions would also be given to those IT parks, which offer built-up space on certain conditions.
A capital subsidy at the rate of 20 per cent of the total investment subject to a ceiling of Rs 20 lakh has also been offered. Capital subsidy on case-to-case basis would also be offered to mega projects, which are bringing in an investment of Rs 50 crore or would employ 1,000 persons. All cases of mega IT units would be taken up by the empowered committee.
IT units would be exempted to a payment of stamp duty during the setting-up period followed by another three years.
These units do not have to pay any electricity duty for five years. Such units are exempted from clearances from the Punjab Pollution Control Board.
SS Channy, principal secretary, industries, Punjab, said the draft policy would be discussed with Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal before it is sent to the Cabinet for approval. Overcoming one of the most pressing problems of land shortage, the state government has, over the past one year, managed to create a large land bank in the state for IT industries at Kapurthala and Ropar.
