Eyeing to become the numero uno destination for IT companies as well as professionals by 2012, Orissa government today said the upcoming industries in the sector would be supported with subsidised land, power and other amenities.

The state government is now putting more thrust on IT to create more employment for the local youth. We have already finalised the roadmap for envisaging greater IT infrastructure to the software companies", Orissa's IT minister S N Patro said.

While inagurating a seminar-- "ICT Orissa, 2008" organised by CII, Orissa chapter, Patro said the government already allotted 62 acre of land in the periphery of Bhubaneswar to create new IT infrastracture.

Similarly, the government had also allocated 500 acre of land for the IT SEZ on Bhubaneswar-Khurda Highway, he said.

"The expenditure in IT SEZ will be around Rs 4,000 crore. This will be created by public-private partnership (PPP)", patro said adding about one lakh direct and four lakh indirect employment opportunities would be created by the effort.

At present, nearly 18,000 IT professionals were working in various corporates like Infosys, TCS, Satyam and others.

The minister said that the state government was launching e-governance programme in Bhubaneswar and Berhampur from January 2009.

"This will be the one-stop solution for water bill, telephone bill, railway ticket, air ticket at a nominal price", he added.