Beware of Real Estate price rises : IT Minister

Burgeoning real estate prices would hamper the growth of the IT sector in Tamil Nadu, Union Minister for IT and Communications Dayanidhi Maran said. Launching India's first web-based cross-cultural educational portal of Global Adjustments here, he said the government was not responsible for the increase in the real estate prices, which was a cause for concern for IT companies, planning to invest in Tamil Nadu, especially in Chennai. "It (the rapid increase in real estate price) was due to investment in real estate by Indians working abroad," he added. Stating that the phenomenal increase in the real estate prices would affect IT companies from investing in India, Mr Maran appealed to those in real estate not to increase the land prices. "If you increase the land prices, then the IT companies will run away from Chennai," he said and pointed out that the land prices in tier-II cities like Coimbatore, where the Tamil Nadu government had decided to set up IT parks to attract investments, had in fact gone up steeply and was almost double the prices prevailing in Chennai. Earlier, launching the e-learning portal on cross-cultural education in the presence of US Consul General David T Hopper, Cognizant Technology Vice-chairman Lakshmi Narayanan and Global Adjustments Private Ltd CEO Ranjini Manian, the Minister said India was growing at a tremendous pace with more and more MNCs were looking up to set up their base in India. "Such services have become very essential and Global Indian will surely address the growing need of professionals travelling abroad". Ms Ranjini said Global Adjustments focuses on providing solutions to ensure that every Indian had access to the training required to work in multi-cultural environment.