Calcutta, March 20: Bengal’s IT department has sought an acre from the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) to set up a tech park in Howrah.

Construction is expected to commence in the beginning of 2014-15 by when land allotment will be completed.

The move is part of the state government’s plan to set up 13 such IT parks in Bengal by March 2015 in the first phase that began last year.

The state had earlier said it would set up one such park in every district to drive information technology (IT) growth. Apart from this, a hardware park at Sonarpur and two greenfield electronic manufacturing clusters at Naihati and Falta are also on the cards.

The planned park will be located close to the gems and jewellery park being set up at Ankurhati in the Howrah district by WBIDC.

The government will try to build synergies with the jewellery cluster to open up avenues for the tech companies in virtual marketing, designing and website development.

“Despite the market condition, the state has been able to maintain growth in IT and is hopeful of further developing it to a greater extent. All these parks will be up and running by next year. We are upbeat about the progress made,” said Swarup Roy, general manager (IT promotion cell), Bengal IT department.

The Howrah hub will add about 55,000 square feet in the first phase. The building, scheduled to be concluded by March 2015, will have space for plug-and-play operations for small units and startups and a built-up for others. The project will cost about Rs 20 crore.

Of the 13 approved IT parks in Bengal, work has started in eight, while four will begin work in April.

The government has plans to set up parks in Durgapur, Siliguri, Asansol, Borjora, Rajarhat, Purulia and Bolpur.

It also plans to set up an integrated zone for information technology in Krishnanagar under the public-private partnership model. The state is currently looking for a private partner. Work on the project could begin by June.