De-notification of Hill No. 2 of Rushikonda soon.

Long-awaited de-notification of Hill No. 2 of Rushikonda may materialise soon with IT Minister Palle Raghunadha Reddy saying that the APIIC had cleared the project and it is now in the court of the Ministry of Commerce.

Mr. Reddy said recently after a review meeting that the Centre was expected to de-notify shortly allowing the entrepreneurs freedom to lease out unused space in their units.

The IT entrepreneurs, who were earlier forced to covert their individual title deeds, into lease deeds as part of SEZ policy can now have the freedom to exit from the Madhurawada SEZ as part of relaxation of rules.

The IT entrepreneurs have been insisting on allowing them to exit so as to get bank finance easily for expansion/diversification, allow them to partner with other companies and rent their premises to others.

Once exited from SEZ, the units have to refund the benefits they had availed for exports under SEZ policy.

HRD Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao said Visakhapatnam had tremendous scope to become a prominent IT hub and asked Mr. Reddy to take the initiative to augment social infrastructure to promote investments.

The government issued an order in July last to facilitate de-notification but it was strongly opposed by the IT entrepreneurs on the ground that there were many riders to exit from SEZ.

Anakapalle MP Muttamsetti Srinivasa Rao, Visakhapatnam IT Association president Ravi Eswarpu, Sankhya Technologies CEO Bulusu Gopikrishna, Millennium Solutions CEO Sridhar and others were present.

THE HINDU