Kerala Govt. mulls handing over Smartcity Kochi to Infopark

The government has been contemplating to handover the prestigious Smartcity project to Inforpark as the former is in a state of limbo for past two years and consecutive talks with Smartcity Tecom officials have proved futile, informed Thomas Isaac, state Finance Minister.

The project, the foundation stone of which was laid in November 2007, is yet to take off due to differences between the State Government and Tecom, the promoters of the project, over issues like granting freehold right for 12 percent of the land allotted for the project.

While the government is sticking to the clause in the framework agreement that free-hold land right could be granted only after the completion of the master plan, the Tecom has been demanding the free-hold land right immediately.

Thomas Isaac said, the government would try to raise fund on behalf of Infopark. He also added that, the government’s main goal would be to resist the ASEAN and price rise. The food subsidy would be raised. This year’s Budget would focus on Food Security and Agriculture sector, Thomas Isaac said.

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Infopark Kochi to be expanded over 160 acres

The second phase of softyware park Infopark in Kochi, which may be developed under a public-private partnership (PPP) model, will come up over 160 acres, said a top company official here Monday.

"We are getting into the second phase of Infopark's expansion. The land will be with us by the end of this year. We may look at building the infrastructure on a PPP model," said Infopark chief executive Siddhartha Bhattacharya.

He said it was still not decided whether the new park would be developed by Infopark or by the newly-promoted Kerala State IT Infrastructure Ltd.

Speaking about the existing Infopark, built over 102 acres, he said: "As of today we are full. In four and a half years, we got 9,000 people working in the IT park. We have already constructed 2.5 million square feet, and another two million square feet is under construction."

According to him, the two million square feet is being developed by Infopark and co-developers like Larsen and Toubro, Wipro and Tata Consultancy.

"Infopark on its own will develop half a million square feet," he said.

Maintaining that the downturn did not have any major impact on IT companies in Kerala, he added: "However, in order to assist small and medium-sized companies we have decided to defer 50 percent of the rent from units located in the park for a year."

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Kochi Infopark expansion, Kerala CM lays foundation stone

Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan today laid the foundation stone for the second phase of expansion of Kochi Infopark and new IT building Athulya, the proposed IT complex with a built up area of 5.5 lakh sq ft at nearby Kakkanad.
Achuthanandan said that for the second phase expansion of Infopark, an additional 160 acre of land has already been acquired. The expansion is planned in such a way that about 50,000 people will have employment opportunity, he said.

"The government recognises that there is a lot of potential in IT sector despite the global financial crisis,"he said, adding the government had taken steps to start IT parks in various districts in the state. Construction work for IT parks in Cherthala and Ambalapuzha in Alappuzha distrit will be started very soon and Master Plan for both the places have already been prepared, he said.

Work on basic infrastructure development has already begun for an IT park at Koratty in Thrissur district. For starting IT parks in north Kerala, a Cyberpark in the model of technopark and Infopark will be developed, he said.

The bottlenecks faced with regard to the construction of SmartCity IT project in Kochi city will be resolved soon and the construction work will start at the earliest, he said.

Today&aposs event would be a curtain raiser to a series of launch events that the state would witness over the next few weeks aimed at achieving improvement in the states IT infrastructure, Siddhartha Bhattacharya, CEO, Infopark said.

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The Infopark in Kochi will complete its five years of existence on November 1, 2008

The Infopark in Kochi will complete its five years of existence on November 1. The IT park, established on November 1, 2003, will celebrate the occasion with a week-long programme from November 1 to 7.

The Infopark was started with four companies and less than 50 employees on 80 acres of land taken over from the KINFRA Export Promotional Industrial Park.

At present, the Infopark has 50 IT companies, including those from the US, Europe and Australia and 8,000 IT professionals. Its present turnover is Rs 500 crore. It was Rs 66 crore in 2004- 05. The Infopark also possesses 106 acres of land.

State Information Technology Secretary Ajay Kumar, who is also the chairman of the Infopark, told to this website's newspaper on Thursday that the Infopark could achieve 85 percent software export growth in the previous fiscal while at the national level only 25 percent growth was registered.

"The Infopark could also attract various IT firms like the Smart City, the TCS, Wipro and the Larsen and Turbo to Kochi. Kochi is a fast growing city and the Infopark can achieve a lot in the IT field in Kerala," he said.

"We are proud that we could complete preparations for starting three Infoparks in Cherthala, Ambalappuzha and Koratti which will be a milestone in the history of Infopark, Kochi. All these parks will be operational within three years," said Infopark Chief Executive Officer Siddarth Bhattacharya.

Infopark senior business development manager Nisanth Kumar said that at the time of its launch the Infopark had only 1-lakh sq ft building - Thapasya.

Currently, the Infopark has 22-lakh sq ft building and the construction for another 22-lakh sq ft is in progress, he said.

It was in July 2004 that the Wipro, one of the leading firms in the Infopark, started its operation in Kochi.

The Larsen and Toubro started its operation in 2005.

Infopark senior technical advisor K Kurien said that as part of our celebrations, we are going to launch new projects like health club, monthly journal, shopping complex, club-house and guest house on the campus.

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Job Opportunity for 3000 - Tejomaya at infopark kochi is ready

Tejomaya is situated near Smart City Kochi

Inauguration: 15th March 2000 by Kerala CM V.S. Achutanandhan

Experience the beauty of bountiful nature within L&T Tech Park. As the name TEJOMAYA suggest, the building is resplendent with the effulgent energy pervading all over. Green-Tech in character, they are replete with energy efficient systems and state-of-the-art Technology: -

• Built over an area of 4 Acres of land within the Infopark Campus.
• Total built-up area of 4.00 Lakh Sq.ft.
• Centrally Air-conditioned Space.
• Highly reliable power system.
• Building management system for optimisation of energy consumption.
• Assured water supply & sewage treatment plant of 300m³ capacity.
• DG Power Back up.
• Fully equipped with the most modern infrastructure facilities.
• Data-Voice Connectivity through multiple service providers.
• Granite Flooring & Cladding in the entrance & lift lobbies.
• Vitrified tile flooring in the atrium, service corridor, and toilets.