Guwahati: The 120,000-square ft tech city for start-ups, being built by the Assam Electronics Development Corporation Ltd (Amtron) near Guwahati airport, will be ready by early next year.

"The response has been tremendous and the state government has decided to add 200,000 square ft space to the upcoming tech city," Amtron managing director M.K. Yadava said at the inaugural session of the ICT North East 2018, organised by CII in partnership with Amtron and Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), here on Friday.

The theme of the flagship conference was digital strategies for enabling ecosystem.

"There is a compelling need for creating a strong ecosystem for nurturing start-ups, not only in Assam, but across the Northeast as well," Yadava said.

"Assam is going to come up with the tech village, a concept designed to help entrepreneurs and students in training and skills. The tech village helps people living in remote areas fulfil their dream of becoming entrepreneurs. Also in the pipeline are a few centres of excellence which will benefit the youths of Assam as well as other northeastern states," he said.

Nitin Khade, IT secretary of Assam, said the government is focusing on promoting e-governance ecosystem in the state. "The state is evaluating the issue of better bandwidth. We would be approaching the Centre soon," Khade said.

"The state government is committed towards providing high speed Internet to every citizen of Assam, which is among the very few states in the country that provides incentives to IT companies which set up units outside the IT parks," Khade said, who also invited start-ups in Assam to come up with innovative ideas in artificial intelligence to tackle floods.