The land for setting up the first International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Tamil Nadu has been identified near Tiruchirapalli, additional chief secretary Dr T S Sridhar said in Chennai on Monday. The proposal to set up 20 IIITs in the country, at an approximate cost of Rs 128 crore, was an initiative by the union HRD ministry. It has been planned to set up the IIITs through the public-private partnership mode.

Participating at the third annual celebrations of ICT academy, Sridhar said the first institute will be set up in Sethurapatty, near Tiruchirapalli. He said some of the top software companies, including Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant and Infosys have evinced interest for setting up the IIIT in Tamil Nadu. He added that there was a need to bring insome more IT companies for setting up the project in the state.