Plots located at the 200-acre IT hub in New Town adjacent to Eco Park can now be booked online, an official of the Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (Hidco) said.

The online plot and land parcel booking system will start functioning within the next 30 days and the system has been configured in a way to eliminate the need of physical visits to Hidco offices, the official said.

The area that has been named Bengal Silicon Valley covers over 200 acres and has 169 acre of allotable space. According to the official, in order to book a plot one has to log in to the Hidco website - www.wbhidcoltd.com.

The details of each of the plot are listed and they range from 0.248 acres to 21.752 acre. All the plots can be taken on a 99-year lease and the price per acre has been set at Rs 4.70 crore per acre by Hidco, the official added.

Debashis Sen, chairman and managing director of Hidco, said the system will not only help people to book the plots easily and save time but will also give effective protection in the ongoing Covid-19 scenario.
According to Sen, this will be a pilot run of sorts and they wanted to emulate the same procedure of booking and allotment of plots across New Town.

On Sunday, 20 organisations, including the Indian Statistical Institute, Webel, Panorama, Vikram Solar and Unified Info Tech, were handed allotment letters in Bengal Silicon Valley.

Smita Pandey, managing director of Webel, said the company would build an IT hub as well a centre for excellence for start-ups in the region.

"This is an area which has seen remarkable development and we are happy to have a place where we can build an IT hub where companies can rent out space at very affordable rates," said Pandey.

Hidco had earlier organised a webinar that discussed the possibility of some big firms in China moving elsewhere. “India is already reaching out to over 300 industries in China, offering them to relocate to India and we want to attract them to move to New Town,” another Hidco official said.

Sudip Chatterjee, company secretary of Vikram Solar which builds solar panels and solar powered applications, said that they had taken land at the Bengal Silicon Valley due to its location as well as the fact that it was a smooth process.

"We want to set up a research as well as manufacturing centre here and are hoping to generate employment for at least 200 men and women," said Chatterjee.