KATHMANDU: The government has endorsed a guideline to operate and manage Panauti, Kavrepalanchowk-based IT Park. This indicates that the park which had remained unused for a long time will now come into operation to contribute in IT sector development.

According to the ‘Directive on IT Park Operation and Management 2015’ approved by the Cabinet recently, the park could be operated in collaboration with universities and private sector under the public-private-partnership (PPP) model. It has talked of using the park for many purposes, including IT system design, call centre, operation of business processing outsourcing (BPO), research and development and training centre for production of skilled IT workforce.

The park, as per the directive, can also be utilised for setting up data centre, data warehousing and back up, hardware fabrication and business incubation centre and running IT-based service and technical support centres, among others. For long, BPO companies had also been demanding government to provide space in the park.

With the guideline in place, local and foreign investors can now set up data centres in the park for commercial purpose. The park was built 11 years ago with a target to contribute in IT sector development. It is spread over 237 ropanis and was developed with an investment of around Rs 400 million.

In the budget for the current fiscal year, the government had also announced of providing space for foreign investors who are interested to set up data centre. Generally, a data centre means a special space where companies can keep and operate their information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, such as servers and storage equipment that run application software, process, store data and content.

“The directive has included a provision under which the park’s existing commercial building and land could be leased,” according to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (MoSTE). Of the total land, only around 10 per cent is occupied with IT Park’s own infrastructure. Currently, the Department of IT’s office is in the park.

In a bid to achieve the target of the guideline, an eight-member committee under the coordination of MoSTE secretary has also been formed. The panel that includes representatives from concerned ministries, private sector and experts as members will work on devising required policies and plans on achieving targets and lobby on developing the park as a special economic zone of the IT sector. Likewise, it will also prepare strategies and programmes to build and operate similar IT parks in other parts of the country.