Hyderabad, Apr 5 (IANS): IT exports from India totalled about $69.7 billion during financial year 2011-12.

J. Satyanarayana, secretary, department of electronics and IT, said this to reporters on the sidelines of a conference here Thursday.

He refused to comment when asked about the possible impact of US elections on the IT exports.

He said the IT Investment Regions (ITIRs) scheme was at an advanced stage.

"We need to take it further. It has to go to a high level committee," he said, while declining to fix any time frame for giving final shape to IRIRs.

He said so far only Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Orissa had come forward to create ITIRs.

The scheme is expected to create new investment regions for IT, IT enabled services and electronic hardware manufacturing sector away from the big cities.

ITIRs will be larger than IT SEZs. The minimum processing area would be 40 percent of the total area of the ITIR and the remaining will be for roads, buildings and other utilities.