East zone may not get IT push anytime soon

■ Experts say incentives could make firms look eastward

While huge structures are continuing to come up in West Zone- Cyberabad, lopsided development approach and skewed allocation of resources have caused East Zone to lag behind the rest of the city in attracting IT companies.

To an extent, the east side of the city, towards Uppal, may not see any new IT companies. Despite having bigwigs such as Infosys and Genpact, there is lack of infrastructure facilities here to setup new IT parks. Big companies have not come on the east side after these two made inroads in the past decade.

The development of east zone lies in limbo due to traffic mayhem on the Warangal Highway and lack of land parcels within the Outer Ring Road (ORR).

“In the recent past, we did not make any allotments to IT companies on the east side within the ORR. Only a couple of companies were given allotments but those who failed to aggressively pursue it were given notices. The land has got exhausted and there is no demand for IT in this region. So we are not looking at this area as one for Tech companies,” an official of TS State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Limited (TSIIC) said.

There are some small tech companies that were set up in Arena towers and a new structure from DSL Infra is coming up here. “Within two years, due to private involvement, some 40 companies had set up operations in DSL Infra at Habsiguda. It is for the state government to send a new proposal once again to the Centre for announcing east side for Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR). This particular government’s priorities have changed and thrust is not given to projects on the east side,” Uppal BJP MLA N.V.S.S Prabhakar said.

Experts believe that incentivising companies will switch to east side. Tapping the area from airport to Pocharam is the only way to balance the development. “If another four or five big tech companies make inroads on the east side, market will move here. People have envisaged development on the east side and to push that, private developers should be engaged for development from airport to Pocharam,” C. Shekar Reddy, former national president of CREDAI said.

While there were no IT companies, TSIIC had allotted land to TS Industrialists Welfare Federation (TIF) for developing the green industrial park for MSMEs at Dandu Malkapur.