Half an hour drive from the international airport here, amid lush greenery, the country will have its biggest one-stop IT township, Technocity, estimated at a total Rs80bn to provide 100,000 IT/ITES jobs and 400,000 indirect job opportunities.
Laying the foundation stone for the integrated township on 433 acres at Pallipuram, 30 km from the popular tourist destination of Kovalam, Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan said the current spell of infrastructure expansion would soon place the State in a coveted position in the country’s IT sector.
The project will be a self-dependent satellite city, set for completion in five to eight years. The first phase is set to be completed within 3 years, by July 2012.
The blueprint envisages the IT township development on the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. It would be done at the maximum possible speed, by breaking down the entire area into smaller land parcels.
The land acquisition was completed earlier this year at Rs 3.4 bn, aided by a consortium of Central Bank of India.
Comprising 10 to 15 million sq ft IT space, it’ll be constructed through multiple Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) in conjunction with leading developers.
Other focus areas will be biotechnology, nanotechnology, high-end manufacturing and R&D.
Technocity is the fourth phase expansion of the State-owned Technopark (Electronic Technology Parks of India). Kerala State IT Infrastructure Ltd (KSITIL), the project developer, has applied for funding to Japan International Cooperation Agency.
IT principal secretary Ajay Kumar said Kerala was transforming itself into a silicon coast through focused initiatives in IT infrastructure development, HR development and citizen e-enablement.
The IT industry was expected to grow three times from $20bn to $60bn and the share of growth from tier 2 and tier 3 cities would grow from 10 percent to 80 percent.
Recent developments in Kerala’s IT landscape are an indication to the huge growth that’s about to take place in the IT/ITES sector. Infopark has begun its phase 2 expansion plans. Malabar region is on its way to become an IT hub with the Cyberparks coming up in Kozhikode and Kasargod.
