Post budget sees a surge in IT company's demand for SEZ space

By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 19 March 2008, 02:03 IST
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New Delhi: IT and BPO companies are stepping up their demand for space in Special Economic Zones (SEZ), barely a fortnight after the Budget ducked the crucial issue of extension of the Software Technology Park of India (STPI) scheme. Real estate developers are seeing a sharp rise in enquiries from those companies, reports Business Line. "Due to non-extension of STPI benefits, we are seeing a very large demand in all our IT SEZs and we see the rentals also moving upwards. This year, we expect the IT SEZ business to do phenomenally well," said Sanjay Chandra, MD, Unitech. According to real estate advisor DTZ, as much as 60 to 70 million sq ft of IT- and ITES-specific commercial office space is expected to come up in India through SEZs alone by 2010. Close to 60 per cent of the SEZ projects in the pipeline belong to the IT and ITES, as STPI benefits are set to end in March 2009. Indiabulls also agreed with the fact, saying there has been a definite "build-up in demand of late", although it was too early to quantify the uptake. "Large IT companies will go for their own SEZs, so it is the mid-sized companies that are primarily looking for space," said Gagan Banga, CEO of Indiabulls, which has two SEZs - one each in Mumbai and Nasik. Parsvnath Developers said there has been an increase in enquiries after Budget. According to Dr B.P. Dhaka, Chief Operating Officer of the Delhi-based real estate company, "many companies are in active dialogue with Parsvnath for space - although we are yet to start the bookings." Confirming a surge in demand for SEZ space, Anuj Puri, Chairman and country head of Jones Lang Lasalle Meghraj pointed out that while many new projects would move to SEZs, the high-end work involving researchers and scientists may continue within the city in STPs, as companies will not want to risk losing such professionals.