Kerala IT Parks has adopted a five-pronged approach for sustained information technology (IT) growth, including the development of infrastructure, its chief executive officer (CEO) John M. Thomas has said.
During an interaction with media on the sidelines of a function at the Infopark here on Friday, Mr. Thomas said the focus was on addressing some common issues in parks like land availability issues.
“Multiple proposals have been forwarded to the State government for identifying land for developing infrastructure, including buildings. Attracting co-developers and enabling them for participating in the capital-intensive infrastructure remain another strategy. Raising the profile of IT parks from mere space providers to ecosystem builder and skilling enabler is another. Better access to IT facilities remains another focus area,” he said.
Price moderator
Mr. Thomas said that notwithstanding the participation of co-developers, Kerala IT Parks had to set up its own buildings to remain as a price moderator to attract small- and medium-sized companies. “Small and medium companies along with start-ups have contributed to job creation in Kerala. We will now focus on attracting big companies as well,” he said.
From the pilot project of offering internships to 1,500 graduates to check brain drain, the project may be progressively expanded to cover about 5,000 graduates by next year. Mr. Thomas said that this was part of the increased attention of IT Parks on skill training and turning to creation of human resource assets. Selected start-ups would be empanelled to extend training under the programme.
Amenities
“Creation of talent locally, attracting talents from outside and retaining talents remain critical to sustained IT growth. This calls for better lifestyle amenities. Proposals to develop Phase III and Phase IV of the Technopark as integrated townships complete with residential, commercial and IT buildings, schools and hospitals are in tune with this goal,” said Mr. Thomas.
Despite the challenges of the pandemic, companies with fundamentally good DNA, core strength, feasible business models and technical calibre had survived, he said.
Mr. Thomas said that functioning of small and medium companies was by and large back to office.
