Work on Software Park in Patna to Begin Soon At Last

The Central government, after a delay of nearly a year and a half,
on Tuesday, issued a tender for the construction of a software park
in Patna a project that had been stuck in the political red-tape
since the former Chief Minister Mrs. Rabri Devi announced its set up
back in November 2004.

The tender was issued by the Software Technology Park of India
(STPI) under the Ministry of Communication and Information
Technology to build the administrative building at the New
Government Polytechnic Complex in Pataliputra Colony in Patna, state
Science and Technology minister Anil Kumar Sinha said.

To be built at the cost of Rs. 30 crore on a three acre land, the
work on the project is expected to begin within a month, Sinha said.

Despite having been sanctioned the land and Rs. 1 crore for the
project in November 2004, the project had been gathering dust
because of political uncertainty in Bihar. However, since coming
into power last November, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had been
applying pressure on the UPA government to provide the much-needed
momentum to the project that finally yielded result on Tuesday.

Sources, however, said that despite five previous attempts by the
Chief Minister, the UPA government showed no interest in reviving
the project. Only after Kumar contacted the chief of Infosys
expressing his desire to build a software park in Patna that the UPA
government woke up from its slumber and decided to act swiftly.

Politics notwithstanding, the move is expected rejuvenate the
spirits of many young entrepreneurs who had been waiting for this
opportunity for quite some time.

The park would be fully functional in one year and would offer high
speed Internet connection besides state-of-the-art equipment, Sinha
said.