Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh is launching Work from Hometown (W@HT) centres for IT and ITeS employees /employers and freelancers in 29 locations on a pilot basis.
AP Information Technology, electronics and communications department in coordination with APSSDC, APNRT, APIS, APSCHE would set up these centres in various engineering colleges and APIS facilities in Visakhapatnam, Kakinada and Tirupati.
Minister for IT, Mekapati Gautam Reddy, launched the website of the project at an event here on Tuesday. He said AP is the first in the country to launch these centres to help those in these sectors who worked from home due to the Covid19 pandemic and are facing difficulty with critical requirements such as high-speed internet, uninterrupted power supply, dedicated work space etc.
He said that as pandemic was seemingly receding, IT/ITeS companies are evaluating options like going back to the pre-Covid scenario of working from offices, letting employees work in a hybrid model by letting them work for a few days a week from anywhere and continuing to let them work remotely full time.
Minister Gautam Reddy said that in order to support hybrid working models as well as work from anywhere for extended periods, AP is providing co-working spaces closer to employee’s homes with facilities like uninterrupted power supply, high speed broadband connectivity through leased lines, dedicated workstations and clean spaces.
Work from Hometown pilot centres are being set up in locations across the state. Each centre shall have a seating capacity that could accommodate a minimum of 30 employees. Request from any IT/ITES company requiring a dedicated centre for itself will be considered, he said.
Officials said, based on demand, the ITE&C department also plans to scale up and expand the Work from Hometown spaces by leveraging existing infrastructure in 102 CM Excellence Centres, 500 colleges, 20 engineering colleges, as also APIS and APIIC facilities in the near future. These could accommodate nearly 100,000 IT/ITeS employees.
Interested IT/ITeS employees and employers may contact 9988853335 or visit www.apit.ap.gov.in/wfht/ for further information and registrations, officials added.
