Additional sops to attract IT companies

Vijayawada: The Cabinet on Thursday decided to provide additional incentives to attract IT companies and designated technology parks.

The State Cabinet in a meeting here, decided to provide special incentives in addition to the AP IT policy to motivate the IT companies on par with other States and to provide more employment opportunities in the State.

As part of the special incentives, the Cabinet decided to reimburse 50 per cent of lease rentals paid to IT office space for a period of three years,

25 per cent of bandwidth connectivity paid to internet service providers for three years and reimbursement of fixed power cost at Rs 1 per unit consumed for five years.

It has also been decided to provide exemption of electricity duty and applicability of industrial tariff to IT and ITES units for a period of five years.

Similarly, cent per cent reimbursement will be made on stamp duty and registration fee on the first transaction of IT companies.

The Cabinet also decided to provide 50 per cent reimbursement on property tax to designated IT parks developed by private builders or leasers for providing state of the art plug and play IT office space.

The cabinet decided to provide 50 per cent reimbursement of one time cost for creating common infrastructure like conference halls, server room and cafeteria and reimbursement of 10 per cent of the total interest paid on the loan obtained from financial institutions.

PF to a maximum of Rs 2,000 per employee per month for a period of two years will also be reimbursed.