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Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has declared ‘full support’ of the government to the proposed ₹1,200-crore investment in ‘Downtown Technopark,’ a new address for IT infrastructure near Technopark here.
“We should be able to move with the times; the government has a clear vision to do so,” he said after the framework agreement for the project was signed here on Wednesday.
Project proposal The Chief Minister said the day was ‘momentous’ in the history of Kerala’s IT sector. Downtown Technopark was first discussed at the Emerging Kerala investor meet in September 2012, he noted.
The US-based Taurus Investment Holdings is anchoring the investment in the new project. Its president Erik Rijinbout, India managing director Ajay Prasad, and Technopark CEO Girish Babu represented the respective parties during the signing ceremony.
Minister for IT and industries PK Kunhalikutty, former Technopark CEO G Vijayaraghavan, and IT and Industries Principal Secretary PH Kurian were also present on the occasion.
Kunhalikutty was of the view that any issues that come in the way of the project could be settled then and there. Downtown Technopark is a feather in the cap of Kerala’s developmental agenda, he added.
Time schedule The project will be located between Technopark Phase 1 and the US Technologies Global campus and that will be completed over two stages and provide employment to 20,000 people.
In the first stage, two buildings with a built-up space of 18 lakh sq ft will be constructed in 10 acres in the Technopark Special Economic Zone (SEZ).
The framework also includes the development of another 9.73 acres in the no-SEZ commercial land for utilities like retail malls, hotels, convention centres and multiplexes.
The construction on the first building for IT services, the retail mall and the hotel will start in January next year, said Ajay Prasad. It is scheduled to be completed by March 2018. Work on the second hotel and IT building will be completed in January and June of 2020 respectively.”
Launched in 1990, Technopark is home to over 300 companies, employing 40,000 professionals.
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