In news

The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) is investing up to ₹400 crore in setting up office and connectivity infrastructure across several cities, offering small technology firms a ‘plug-and-play’ facility.

Highlights

• Facilities are being set up at Darbhanga, Bhagalpur, Deoghar, Koraput, Kohima, Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi, while STPI is expanding existing infrastructure in places such as Bengaluru.
• Other cities where work on incubation infrastructure was either completed or was in progress included Mohali, Srinagar, Prayagraj, Bengaluru, Vijayawada, Bhubaneshwar, Agartala, Jaipur, Ranchi, Kolkata and Nagpur.
• The government arm is also offering grants and incubation opportunities to start-ups as part of its Next Gen Incubation Scheme.
• In collaboration with the private sector, the agency is also aiming to raise funds to the tune of ₹120 crore for the scheme.

STPI

Software Technology Parks of India was set up in 1991 as an autonomous society under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

Objective

The promotion of software exports from the country. STPI acts as ‘single-window in providing services to the software exporters.

Details

The services rendered by STPI for the software exporting community have been statutory services, data communications services, incubation facilities, training and value added services. STPI has played a key developmental role in the promotion of software exports with a special focus on SMEs and startup units.

STPI has been implementing the Software Technology Park (STP) scheme and the Electronics Hardware Technology Park (EHTP) scheme for the promotion of IT/ITES industry. T

STP Scheme is a unique scheme, designed to promote the software industry and growth of startups and SMEs without any locational constraints. As present, more than 5,000 units are registered with STPI.

The overall exports done by STPI registered IT/ITES units increased from Rs. 3,75,988 crores in FY 2017-18 to Rs. 4,21,103 crores in FY 2018-19.

Source: The Hindu