Marketing, IT SEZ Can Help UP.

LUCKNOW: Aggressive marketing and an information technology special economic zone in its midst could well be the answer to Uttar Pradesh's migration woes. This, according to Arun Seth, chairman, British telecom (India), was the way forward for UP. Seth was speaking at a special interactive session organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry in Lucknow on Friday.

Seth said, "Lucknow has all the ingredients to become an IT-BPO hub by way of abundant talent availability, quality of life, connectivity and lower cost of doing business. All it need is an IT Special Economic Zone (SEZ) coupled with some aggressive marketing." He also emphasised that with setting up of a large SEZ in UP, especially Lucknow, the state can easily create 1 lakh direct jobs along with nearly 3 lakh indirect jobs.

In addition to creating new jobs in the state, Seth added that an IT SEZ would arrest migration of technical manpower from the state. He said, "UP produces nearly 1.40 lakh engineers annually. With a world-class work environment being offered within the state, the migration figures would drop drastically, if not be curtailed entirely."

Applauding the potential of the state, Jayant Krishna, chairman, CII, UP State Council said, "Lucknow has a huge opportunity to emerge as an IT-BPO hot spot. It is one of the best tier-2 cities in India. However, it needs to be branded and packaged well as an excellent IT-BPO destination. The state government and IT-BPO industry have to work as partners to turn this dream into a reality." Krishna also referred to a NASSCOM and AT Kearney study, where Lucknow has been identified as a `challenger' city and has been placed among the top 7 existing IT destinations.

Interestingly, the Uttar Pradesh government had proposed to set up a 25 acre IT-SEZ in the Gomti Nagar extension area of Lucknow. However, the proposal has, even after more than 6 months of its announcement, failed to take off in the state. Krishna said, "I am hopeful that setting up such an enterprise excites the government as well, and the project gets implemented."

Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com