Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao congratulated State IT Department for impressive growth in IT exports from State. Telangana’s exports grew at 17.93 per cent compared to the national average of 8.09 per cent and Rest of the Nation’s average of 6.92 per cent. The Chief Minister was happy to note that the share of the State’s exports in India went up from 10.6 per cent to 11.6 percent and the share of Telangana in this year’s growth in national exports was a remarkable 23.5 per cent.
“This clearly indicates that Telangana is poised to be the most preferred destination for IT investments in the future,” the Chief Minister said. He also directed the IT department to ensure that all measures and precautions are taken to ensure that the IT Industry functions smoothly, keeping in view the coronavirus pandemic.
IT and Industries Minister K T Rama Rao and the Principal Secretary Jayesh Ranjan met the Chief Minister at Pragathi Bhavan here on Thursday and shared with him the details of the IT exports and the employment data for the financial year 2019-20.
On the employment front Telangana grew at a rate of 7.2 per cent compared to the national average of 4.93 per cent while the rest of the nation grew at average of 4.59 per cent. The State achieved 50 per cent more than that of the country. Telangana’s share of employment in the country grew from 13.06 per cent in 2018-19 to 13.34 per cent in 2019-20. The overall share of Telangana in the Indian export growth for 2019-20 was 23.53 per cent, while the overall share of Telangana in the Indian employment growth for 2019-20 wa 19.07 per cent.
The IT Minister explained that despite the coronavirus pandemic during the last quarter of the financial year 2019-2020 (Jan 2019 to March 2020), Telangana achieved a phenomenal export growth 17.93 per cent which was more than double that of the country’s growth. The Principal Secretary mentioned the efforts undertaken by the IT department under the IT4TS campaign during the lockdown.
Several employees contributed their one day or two days salary and with companies matching in multiples. The Chief Minister was told that the proceeds were used to procure high-end medical infrastructure for testing Covid 19 in government hospitals. “Several companies were involved in contributing towards the PPEs, ventilators, and other relief efforts among other things,” Jayesh Ranjan said. The IT fraternity in Hyderabad was able to raise over Rs 70 crore collectively towards the fight against Covid 19.
During the 2019-20 financial year, several marquee investments took place in Hyderabad, including the inauguration of Amazon’s world’s largest facility at 3 million SFT and Micron’s largest R&D centre globally. TechMahindra and Cyient chose to open their centres in the tier-2 location of Warangal.
The government is also promoting dispersion of IT around the city with several MNCs showing interest in the eastern parts of the city. The commercial space absorption in the city during the first quarter for year 2019-20 also topped all Metros in India in absolute terms.
Rama Rao said that the Hyderabad IT eco-system had the agility and resilience to overcome the effects of Covid-19. He pointed out that several investors were actively engaged in discussions with the department and very soon, there will be some announcement in this regard. the Department will release the progress report on June 1 depicting the achievements during the year 2019-2020 . This will be the sixth year in a row that the IT department will be releasing its progress report without fail.