By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, March 17, 2015 :

In a bid to boost the information technology [IT], Odisha government is working an ambitious plan to have six more Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) in the state, according to the  tourism and culture minister Ashok Chandra Panda.

The state presently has four parks in Bhubaneswar, Rourkela, Brahmapur and Balasore.

Panda, while answering on behalf of the state IT minister Pranab Prakash Das to a query by Congress member Naba Kishore Das, on Tuesday said in the Assembly that the state aimed to become a major IT hub by 2020.

Expressing concern over the reluctance of IT firms in the state to employ Odia techies, Mr Das wanted to know the number of Odias employed in IT firms based in the state.

“In the last 14 years of the BJD rule, how many Odia engineers did you enroll in your skill development programme? You gave them land, infrastructure and tax benefits. My direct question to the minister is how long would you fool the people in the name of skill development?” Mr Das asked.

The ruling BJD legislator MLA Amar Prasad Satapathy also took up the matter and pointed out that the companies were not hiring people from the state as they find them incompetent. He wanted to know if the government had insisted on any condition to employ local people before providing land and other facilities to companies that have set up shop here.

Panda said, there are 108 software companies operating in the state have given employment to 13,384 people of whom as many as 9849 were Odia.

“We are trying our level best to launch a skill development initiative for engineering graduates during their final year campus placement through the Employment Mission. This will empower them technically, so that they can face the tests of IT majors such as Infosys, TCS and WIPRO once they are on the job,” said the minister.

On September 30, 2014, IT Minister Das had announced setting up of six more parks at Jaypore, Sambalpur, Jajpur, Angul, Rayagada and Bhawanipatna. The Union government has also accorded in-principle approval for setting up the six more parks in Odisha, taking the number of such parks in the state to 10.