Kerala’s IT sector is less affected by recession?

Even as software giants like Infosys are not too sure when the US economy would start recovering, the tiny southern State of Kerala is exuding confidence that things have already started looking up and in three to five years, and the sector would be back on gravy train

“This time last year, situation was very gloomy. But now, it is not all that bad. Things would improve and in three to five years, the sector would see a healthy growth trajectory,’’ says Siddhartha Bhattacharya, Chief Executive Officer of Infopark, Kochi, of the three main IT parks in

The other two are Technopark (Thiruvananthapuram) and Cyberpark (Kozhikode). Bhattacharya, who was in Hyderabad to take part in eIndia conference beginning tomorrow, says: “The software sector is yet to go a long way in India. A McKenzie report says the addressable BPO market is US $250 bn and India has just only 10 per cent share in it,’’ he says.

“Take for instance my Infopark at Kochi. It is throbbing with life. The growth trajectory has never been low in spite of trying times that we have seen,’’ he says, adding that his State offered lowest power tariff and several other concessions. The wheel and spoke model (hubs and satellites) of creating infrastructure is delivering results. “An hour away from a city would significantly reduce costs and the State thus could provide better infrastructure to the companies at the lowest price,’’ he says.

Infopark is more recent of the other two parks- it was set up in 2004 in an area of 100 acre campus and now another 160 acres are being earmarked for its expansion. Its total gross turnover rose to RS.463 crore in last fiscal which is nearly 87 per cent growth year on year. Including other ancillary units, the total turnover from Infopark touched an all time high of nearly Rs.600 crore, he says.

He says Infopark was able to add 2,500 IT professionals and this takes the employment in Infopark to 9000 direct employees