A state government spokesperson said that “a complete strategy is ready to develop Lucknow, Kanpur, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Varanasi and Prayagraj as hubs of IT and ITES sector”.
The Uttar Pradesh government on Saturday announced its plans “to develop Lucknow as the country’s first AI city”.
As part of the initiative, the government plans to develop Lucknow as India’s eighth “Magnet City in the next five years, with the period divided into 20 quarters”. It also said that it plans “to rejuvenate five cities of UP” as hubs of the Information Technology (IT) and Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) sector.
A state government spokesperson said that “a complete strategy is ready to develop Lucknow, Kanpur, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Varanasi and Prayagraj as hubs of IT and ITES sector”.
This is part of the government’s plan to “make the state a one-trillion dollar economy in the next five years”. The spokesperson said that “the government believes that these five districts of Uttar Pradesh will open doors of possibilities for the development of the state in the IT and ITES sector, preventing migration of excellent talents from the state forever”.
“Under the leadership of Chief Secretary Durgashankar Mishra, a team of top officers of various departments worked on this plan for the last eight months and recently gave a detailed presentation on this in front of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Subsequently, the Chief Minister has asked the officers to get involved in mission mode to implement the entire plan,” said the spokesperson.
“Due to its proximity to the National Capital, New Delhi, and Gurugram, Gautam Budh Nagar is already one of the best destinations for IT and ITES companies. However, the Adityanath government wants to make Gautam Buddha Nagar a hub of software production not only for companies from within the country but also global players in the IT industry,” he added.
He said that “Kanpur, once known as the Leather City and the financial capital of UP, may soon be recognised as India’s robotics and drone technology hotspot”.
“IIT-Kanpur is going to play a big role in this. Varanasi and Prayagraj will be responsible for creating quality engineering talent on a large scale for Lucknow, Kanpur and Gautam Buddha Nagar. Varanasi and Prayagraj already have big institutes like IIT-BHU, MNIT and Triple IT to become a hub of engineering manpower and research and development,” added the spokesperson.
