AHMEDABAD: With the launch of the IT/ITes Policy 2022-27, the government of Gujarat has taken a big leap to attract investments in the information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services (ITes) sector – where the state had clearly missed the bus before.
Gujarat CM unveiled the policy document on Tuesday at a ceremony held at GIFT City in Gandhinagar.
The policy proposes a slew of incentives, capital expenditure support, skilling initiatives and infrastructure development.
A major bonanza comes for IT/ITes companies investing here, which will get capital expenditure support of 25% up to a ceiling of Rs 200 crore taking a leap from a ceiling of Rs 1 crore in the previous edition of the policy.
In a first, OPEX (operational expenditure) support ranging from Rs 20-40 crore has been extended by the government, which will include lease rental, bandwidth, cloud rental, patent and power tariff expenditure.
Special incentives for companies have also been launched to promote employment generation, with a one-time incentive up to Rs 60,000 per employee and reimbursement in Employee Provident Fund (EPF) from 75-100% per employee.
“Through this policy, we aim to increase IT exports in India from prevalent Rs 3,000 crore to more than eight-folds of Rs 25,000 crore per annum and generate direct employment for 1 lakh persons,” said Patel.
Currently, less than 1% of the IT exports come from Gujarat.
To boost infrastructure development, the new policy also proposes to provide capex support and power tariff subsidy for five years to set up data centres and cable landing stations.
“Rental subsidy of 50% up to Rs 10,000 per seat per month will be provided to new companies in addition to capex support of Rs 100 crore to develop IT cities/townships to real estate developers,” states the policy document.
Besides these, a host of skilling initiatives from setting up artificial intelligence (AI) school of excellence, in addition to direct benefit transfer up to Rs 50,000 to students, working professionals for skill development have also been announced.
Industry players have hailed the policy as a strategic opportunity not just for expansion for existing companies but also for attracting fresh investments.
