New Kerala IT Policy draft to be published next week

The draft of the new IT policy of Kerala will be published next week. This was announced by the State Minister for Industries and IT, Shri P K Kunhalikutty at a session organised by GTech, the Group of Technology companies based in the Government owned IT Parks in Kerala. The Minister added that the draft, which has been finalised, may be published as early as next Monday.

While asking all the players in the IT industry to study the draft proposal in detail and come out with positive comments, the Minister said, “We hope the policy would aggressively promote the State’s IT industry. It’s only a starting point, give us good suggestions and we will make changes in the final policy”. As part of the 100 day programme of the UDF Government, which came into power in May, the Chief Minister Shri Oommen Chandy had announced a new IT policy for the State.

V K Mathews, President, GTech and Chairman, IBS, put forth the expectations of the IT industry from the new government. He stressed upon the need for government support to the IT industry in Kerala in terms of rental freeze, incentives for job creation and supply of power / utilities at preferential rates. GTech has also asked for industry representation in the Policy Implementation Boards of Technopark, Trivandrum; Infopark, Kochi and Cyberpark, Kozhikode.

He also called for the relaxation in policy norms which would enable SME’s in Kerala to bid for Kerala Government’s e-Governance projects. This would be good for the government and the companies. The idea of an ‘Invest in Kerala’ mission for promoting investments was mooted by GTech during the session.

In his talk, T Balakrishnan IAS, Addl. Chief Secretary, Dept. of Industries & Commerce said, “Success of home-grown companies will reflect the investment environment in the State and this should encourage more start-ups and others to come to Kerala. But we need to change the ‘not-so-friendly’ image across the investment community”. C P John, Socio-Economic Analyst, made a presentation on the challenges ahead for the IT industry in Kerala.

Mervin Alexander, CEO, Technopark and Binu Sankar, CEO, GTech were among the 200 odd CXOs from about 100 IT Companies from the IT parks in Kerala, who were present on the occasion.

Anil Philip
Kerala IT News