It's simple yet attractive IT Policy, says ITAAP

Visakhapatnam: HAILING as a 'good beginning,' the IT Association of Andhra Pradesh (ITAAP)-a platform for IT and IT enabled services to articulate their viewpoint, has welcomed the new IT Policy cleared by State Cabinet.

ITAAP State president Kosaraju Sreedhar told Bizz Buzz on Thursday that they were happy over the announcement of "Integrated Technology Park" in Visakhapatnam, consisting of an emerging technologies research university, incubation centers, Centers of Excellence (CoE), labs, co-working spaces, state data center (SDC),and supporting offices of the IT,E&C department. He said the proposed university would help Visakhapatnam transform into a centre for production for high-end manpower.

Referring to fiscal incentives, he said the employment creation incentive. 10 per cent of CTC would be given as an incentive for every new job creation. It is applicable to existing companies too.

Sreedhar, however, said though the policy would be in force with retrospective effect from April 1, 2021, it should have been advanced by a year - the date when the old policy lapsed. As BPO jobs were more in AP, the government should have considered 25 per cent of CTC (instead of 10 per cent CTC) at least to give employment creation incentive, he opined. He said the government should reduce the employee limit to 10 or 20 from 50 for LPP (Local Procurement Preference) provision and urged the authorities to release pending incentives immediately.

He said the announcement to provide Rs 20,000 as incentive to each new employee in WFH mode would also benefit several employers. He lauded the decision for 50 per cent reimbursement on quality certification with a cap of Rs 5 lakh, industrial power tariff is applicable for all IT units and transport subsidy of Rs 500 per employee per month for two years and Rs 20,000 for gig workers-to freelancers.

The ITAAP president said the new policy offers Rs10,000 on every placement in AP to training institutes, disbursement of incentive to the eligible enterprises within six months from the date of issue of the order. He said the government has decided to launch a flagship startup promotion scheme for early-stage startups named 'Accelerate Startups in Andhra Pradesh (ASAP). A fund of funds of Rs. 100 crore will be co-created in partnership with a consortium of venture capitals and private equity firms and universities, for funding startups in the State, he stated.