Kerala to offer 25,000 IT jobs in 2 years

Dubai, Oct 20: Kerala will generate upto 25,000 jobs in IT and related sectors in the next two years as it seeks to make the state a preferred destination for the industry, a top official said.

Dr Ajay Kumar, Secretary, Information Technology, Kerala government, who is here heading a high level delegation to participate in Gitex 2008, the region's premier IT show, told the sources that the Kerala government would like see the current global financial downturn as an opportunity to create viable IT infrastructure with a future perspective. He said that though the perception is that the state is plagued by labour disputes, the IT sector's growth was many times more than that of the national average.

Apart from IT companies, Dr Kumar said, ''we are also inviting real estate firms to build and operate facilities for IT industry in Kerala.'' The state is setting up ten IT parks with an investment of about five billion dollars in the next ten years, he said.

The GITEX Technology Week is being held from October 19, 2008 to Oct 23, 2008.

The Secretary said the new IT parks will be standalone townships with restaurants, housing and all social networking facilities like bars so that the software employees will have the right ambience to work.

The recent NASSCOM survey on leading IT/ITES destinations covering a range of parameters including land costs, power and communication infrastructure ranked Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram as a top notch ITES destinations with potential of challenging metros like Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi.

UNI