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Hotmail guru plans Nano City in Haryana
Sabeer Bhatia would be working with Haryana government officials to finalise the location of the knowledge city.
Hotmail founder Sabeer Bhatia is exploring the possibility of setting up a knowledge city - Nano City - in Haryana.
"The goal of our efforts is to create a silicon valley in Haryana and make it the intellectual capital of the country," Bhatia said in the presence of Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
Haryana state officials said that once the plan was conceptualised, it would be the "biggest city" of its kind in India.
Bhatia, who sold hotmail.com to Microsoft for $400 million, would be working with state government officials in a joint working group to finalise the location and basic parameters of the project within three months.
The city would cover technologies like Nano technology, biosciences, software product development, next generation Internet products, materials research and energy.
Thanking the Haryana government for inviting him to be part of such a project, Bhatia said the knowledge hub would also explore future technologies.
"The policies of the Haryana government are really futuristic as all future jobs would be in the knowledge-based economy. We must change our focus from manufacturing economy to the knowledge-based one," he said.
The project, for which Hooda has directed officials to accord fast-track clearances, would be a public-private partnership, Haryana's principal secretary-industries PK Chaudhary said.
