Town Dump or IT Destination? – The Infopark Story

Technopark Today is an exclusive website for Technopark, but Infopark is a close cousin, since many of the companies operating from Technopark have offices in Infopark, Kochi too.

I take the opportunity of putting forward some major problems techies face at Infopark, and this may be of interest to Technoparkians too.

Firstly the roads. The approach road to Infopark Kochi is extremely narrow. Two trucks coming from opposite directions, or say two buses find it extremely difficult to give way to each other due to the narrow curving roads. It is almost impossible for a two wheeler to overtake a lorry or a bus on this road without taking the risk of crashing head on, onto an oncoming vehicle.

The junction where the road from Kakkanad to Infopark intersects the road that joins the Kakkanad signal road to Veegaland is a joke. It is not even a junction, just an X shaped intersection rather than a regular cross junction. Techies face the risk of being crushed to death under the heavy vehicles that cross the road if they are not too careful. A traffic signal here is something of a necessity.

Not only that but both these roads need to be widened to a considerable extent to make meaningful traffic flow possible.
The gates in front of the Leela building and the Infopark entrance face an open dusty space which cannot be called a road. Here you will find vehicles moving in all directions all across 360 degrees.

As Kochiites know, Kakkanad is the city’s town dump. Trucks carrying carrion and unbearably rotting waste that has decayed for more than a week pass in front of the Infopark gates, in the process dropping waste and liquid that emanates a smell that encompasses the whole Infopark campus making one wonder whether Infopark is a software development park or a waste treatment center!

If you have the bad luck to encounter one of these waste carrying lorries on the narrow roads, you are in trouble, becasue you cannot overtake the truck safely due to the width of the road, and secondly you risk getting suffocated by the unbearable smell.

Smart city and all that hyphe has not made the Kochi Municipal council to change its mind. There were court litigations recently to stop dumping of waste in the dump just in front of the collectorate, and another one related to dumping of waste in public places. But it seems no one has learnt a lesson.

If Kochi Infopark needs to be looked upon as a progressive technology park ready for IT giants and the Smart City, drastic changes have to take place.

Here is a story from the Hindu on waste being dumped inadvertently in front of Infopark campus.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Kochi/article2659212.ece