Gandhinagar, Feb 8 (IANS) Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel on Tuesday unveiled a new IT/ITES policy that is expected to take the state’s export from Rs 3,000 crore to Rs 25,000 crore in five years.

It also promises to generate one lakh new direct jobs in the next five years.

Launched at a formal event in Gandhinagar’s GIFT city, the new policy aims at replacing the 2016-2021 policy which had promised to create 10 lakh jobs over the last five years.

It offers both capital and operational support to IT firms making new investments in the state. For the first time, as claimed by the government, the policy provides support for both capital (CAPEX) and operational (OPEX) expenditures. The CAPEX support has been raised from Rs 1 crore to Rs 200 crore for mega projects.

For the normal projects, a 25 percent CAPEX support will be given under the limit of a maximum of Rs 50 crore and upto Rs 200 crore limit will be for the mega projects. Fifteen percent OPEX support will be given for normal projects upto Rs 20 crore every year and for megaprojects upto Rs 40 crore every year. The OPEX will include lease rental, bandwidth, cloud rental, patent, and power tariff expenditure.

Two special incentives have been included in the policy by the Gujarat government to encourage IT employment. Besides, an Employment Generation Incentive (EGI) upto Rs 60,000 per employee and a redemption upto 100 percent for the EPF contribution of the employer by Atmanirbhar Gujarat rojgar sahay have also been included.

Support of up to Rs 50,000 (males) – Rs 60,000 (females) or 50 percent of one month’s CTC will be given to the IT firm for hiring and retaining a new local employee for a year.

Apart from this, IT/ITES units will be able to claim reimbursement on the employer’s statutory contribution under the Employees Provident Fund. The state government will reimburse 100 percent of the EPF amount for female employees and 75 percent for male employees.

Besides, the government is also providing CAPEX support of a maximum of Rs 100 crore for creating IT office space in an IT city or township. For IT/ITES units opting to start operations in coworking, IT office spaces under the government facilitated model, a fiscal support of Rs 10,000 will be given on a per seat basis for the first two years. Thereafter, Rs 5,000 will be given for 3-5 years.

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