Bangalore, Nov 4: The underdogs seem to be getting more than a mouthful in the dog-eat-dog war for infotech investment. Although no one would have given sleepy Kerala (they're still ruled by communists, you know!) much credit in wooing high-tech capital, Thiruvananthapuram's 180 acre Technopark has already grabbed 40 companies.What's more, big names are now heading that way. Infosys is learnt to have committed itself to taking up a facility there along with Wipro, BFL Software, Compaq and BPL. While Wipro and Infosys will be taking land and building their own software development centres ground up, the others will likely move into Technopark's 700,000 sq feet built-up facility as a first step.
While the troika of Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai fight for bigger shares of the IT pie, Kerala is stealing a quiet march by bagging some prestigious projects.
Along with Technopark, the state is developing two other IT parks in Kozhikode and Kochi. For the Thiruvananthapuram park alone, the selling pitch is pretty attractive. Built-up space per square foot (sqft) cost at Technopark comes to Rs 1050 (Rs 3500 for Bangalore and Rs 2800 for Hyderabad), while rentals come to a piffling Rs 12 per sqft (Rs 62 and 42 for the other two competitors respectively). On the infrastructure front, connectivity is no problem with two gateways, one each of the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) and VSNL. The international airport offers 30 overseas links.
The proposition is indeed appealing: low start-up and operation costs, no state-level government clearances required, duty-free imports, 7-year sales tax holiday, exemption from electricity tax, 50 per cent subsidy on captive power gensets, 20 per cent subsidy on capital investments with a Rs 25 lakh ceiling.
Add to that a large pool of English-speaking qualified manpower, and it's clear why many IT companies are looking at Kerala as a serious alternative.Tata Consultancy Services is operating a Rs 12 crore corporate training and development centre --- claimed to be the largest in South Asia --- with over a thousand people at any given point of time, according to Technopark's business development manager M Vasudevan. Among multinational software companies there are US Software and Claas Solutions of Frankfurt.Apart from tax holidays, companies (from the perspective of overworked programmers) would also find the numerous beaches and backwaters, hill stations and ayurvedic health holidays attractive to give their people a break in their own backyard. u
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