VIJAYAWADA: The State government told the Assembly on Tuesday that only 30,428 IT jobs, of them 2,000 high-end ones, were created in the State since 2014. In reply to questions raised by members as to how many jobs were provided by the IT sector since June 2014 and how much investments made by the IT companies in the State, Minister for IT and Industries Mekapati Goutham Reddy said that a total 175 new companies have made an investment of Rs 1,027.86 crore in the State, of which Pi Datacenters Private Limited invested Rs 500 crore.
It may be recalled that in 2014, the then TDP government had promised to generate one lakh IT jobs in the State in five years with an investment of 2 billion US dollars (Rs 15,000 crore).Giving break-up of the IT jobs in the State since 2014, the minister said out of 30,428 jobs, 4,420 are BPO jobs, 2,000 high-end ones and 24,000 other IT jobs. Goutham Reddy observed that low strike rate for realisation of IT industries’ proposals in the State was due to the opaque incentive schemes.
“There was no common platform or methodology for giving incentives to the companies. While ‘A’ company was given incentives for different reasons, ‘B’ companies were given incentives for some others. Why the variation? We are not able to find out any credible reason for the variation,” he maintained.
He reasoned that it has resulted in the low confidence levels in the investors, who started questioning the different treatments for different firms. For example, one company was given land at one price, while another for the same cause was offered land at a different price. “At the end of the day, we have to ask what is the net benefit to the State from all the incentives offered to the investors. Today, we are buying jobs rather than creating them,” the minister said and observed coming generations will bear the burden of the “ill choices” made.