The four-member empowered committee of experts constituted by the State government to look into applications for setting up private Information Technology Parks is in the process of finalising the process to be followed and information to be furnished by applicants for giving its stamp of approval to individual proposals.
Talking to The Hindu on Thursday, Ajay Kumar, State Principal IT Secretary, said that the arrangement would help untangle many a difficulty faced at present by an investor interested in setting up an independent private IT Park.
The government has already formulated the guidelines for a proposal to qualify as a private IT Park. Technopark Chief Executive Officer, Kerala State IT Mission director, KINFRA managing director and Chief Town Planner are the members of the committee.
The brief of the committee is to assess applications for private IT parks and give the approval, if it complies with the set guidelines, within 45 days from the date of receipt of application.
“The arrangement was for standalone IT Parks only and not for integrated IT projects looking for Special Economic Zone status,” he said.
At present there was no arrangement to deal with private IT Parks.
For instance, an IT initiative can operate out of a household but would not be recognised as an IT unit and hence the operator would have to argue their way to receive concessions available to IT ventures, Mr. Kumar said.
Interestingly, owing to the lack of any monitoring arrangement, the government had no statistics about the private IT parks operating in the State.
Mr. Kumar pointed at the high growth rate in the IT sector for attracting private IT park ventures.
“IT industry in the State has been growing at three times that of the national average and that itself is the biggest selling point,” Mr. Kumar said.
Low power tariff and human resource cost and highly skilled manpower were the other attractions.
At present the committee had before it's consideration an application from the Oceanus Group, Mr. Kumar said.
