She said the forthcoming `IT Kerala 2000', an international fair and conference to be held at Technopark from November 23 would be a landmark event in the State's IT history. The conference would be inaugurated by President KR Narayanan of November 23.

The hi-tech park here would be a joint venture, with Kinfra holding a 26 per cent stake. On completion of the first phase soon, an area of around 10 lakh square feet would become operational.

Efforts are also on to set up a highspeed gateway by tapping two international submarine cable networks with landing stations here. VSNL would also increase its bandwidth to 150 mpbs by next year, and this would mean data communication would speed up considerably. All this would bring in more IT companies to the State as Kochi would be offering the largest bandwidth after Mumbai, she said.

Ms Sundararajan added that the landing points of South-East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-3, the world's longest submarine cable network linking 33 countries spread over four continents using two fibre optic pairs, and South Africa Far East (SAFE) were in Kochi, making it the only Indian city with such a facility.

A decision regarding the `right of way' for laying underground broadband optical fibre network through the national highways and roads would be finalised on November 25 at the IT conference in Thiruvananthapuram. Six companies - Reliance, BPL, Asianet, Escotel, Zeenetwork and Dishnet - have evinced interest in availing of the facility. It would be non-exclusive and would be granted to more than one company, she added. Meanwhile, last touches were being given to the preparations for IT-Kerala 2000 which would have over 170 stalls. Besides a large number of IT giants, the high-profile meet is expected to be attended by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, Dr UR Rao, Mr N Vittal, Mr Barry Vercoe, Mr Charles Handy and Mr Dewang Mehta, she said.