Software park in Janata Tower next year

The much-talked-about Janata Tower in the capital is at last set to become the country's first-ever Software Technology Park by the end of next year following a formal government move to hand over the building to the Ministry of Science and Information Communications Technology.
The 11-storey structure, situated at Karwan Bazar, had been abandoned for a decade because of legal disputes and controversies centring the building.
However, recently the Ministry of Housing and Public Works sent a letter to the ICT ministry to take over the building.
The renovation work on Janata Tower will start soon under a Tk 40crore government project to house the nation's leading software and hardware companies. The move came months after the Digital Bangladesh Taskforce reached a decision in a meeting in August to utilise the abandoned building for setting up such a park.
"Now, our target is to make Janata Tower ready for the use of the hi- tech companies within nine to twelve months", Mahboob Zaman, president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), said yesterday.
According to A N M Safiqul Islam, the hi-tech park's project director, the 60,000 sft building will enjoy uninterrupted electricity supply, high speed internet and data infrastructure facilities to attract both foreign and local IT companies.
Official sources said of Tk 40crore sanctioned for the project, Tk10 crore has been earmarked in the current fiscal year. The rest amount is planned to be mobilised through public-private partnership.
Janata Tower is also expected to turn into a 'green building' with the latest energy conservation and power consumption facilities.
IT leaders, however, are sceptical about the building's relatively limited space, which, they say, could house a few number of companies.
They also fear a high rental cost of the new software and technology premises, which would mean that only the high-end research operation could be carried out within such capacity.
Brushing aside such anticipation, the BASIS chief said at least 60-70 companies will be able to shift to the new premises once the software park gets operational.
"Apart from that, the park will be developed following a PPP model to assure that the premises would not be so expensive”, Zaman added.
Authorities in recent years have come up with an idea of setting up hi-tech parks in various parts of the country, including Mohakhali and Kaliakoir, but the process has been stalled for years because of technical problems and high density of population in the areas.
Currently, there is also a software incubator at the BSRS Bhaban in the capital, which houses some 40 software firms.
Industry insiders are however upbeat on a software hub in Janata Tower. They see it as an added advantage of being located within a bustling area of Dhaka.