In the race to emerge as a leading IT destination in tier-II and tier-III cities, the Kerala government is bullish on investing in its IT sector. The state government is expected to come up with 250,000-300,000 jobs in the IT sector in the next five to six years. The state also plans a total investment of Rs 8,000-10,000 crore for its IT parks in the same time span, according to Ajay Kumar, IT secretary, Kerala. The state also aims to have a total of 10 operational IT parks in two years.
The Kerala government recently earned an SEZ status for Cyberpark Calicut and Cyberpark Kosurguda.
Cyberpark is one of the three operational IT parks in Kerala. The other two, Technopark and Infopark, already have an SEZ status.
The state currently has 35,000 IT employees in the three IT parks which comprises less than 2% of the total IT employees in the country. Though the state accounts for 7% of the total IT employees in the country, only 2% chose the option of staying back and working in Kerela. To encourage employability, the state plans to invest Rs 8,000- 10,000 crore in the next 5 to 6 years. ?Out of this, Rs 2,000 to 2,500 crore is direct investment by the government. During 2009-10, we invested Rs 900 crore and in 2010-11, we are investing Rs 900 crore. While the remaining Rs 300 crore will be invested in 2011-12, the rest will come from private partners. A strategy in developing IT parks is that the government makes the investment so that it is easy for private IT companies to come and invest,? adds Kumar. It is thus, a public-private partnership investment.
Though IT majors like TCS, Infosys, Wipro and now HCL , along with mid-teir IT companies like UST Global have a presence in Kerala, multinational IT companies are still shying away from investing in the state. Out of the 300 IT companies?200 in Technopark and 100 in Infopark?9 % are mid-tier and small companies.
Interestingly, Accentia Technologies, a US-based company, had taken the entire space of two techno-lodges in Sourthen kerala for their BPO operations. ?By this year end, we might have ten functional techno-lodges and all together we are thinking 100 techno-lodges around the state. The investment which goes into each is Rs 65 to 70 lakh and each employees 10 to 50 people,? says Binoo Pazhoor, CEO ,Cyberpark. A techno-lodge is a small IT park established by state government in a small town or a village in the state.
?The state started with 250 acre land for IT parks in 2000, and has now reached 1,500 acre and our target is 3,500 acre,? concludes Pazhoor.