The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : IT park to open at KCT in Jan.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 25, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

IT park to open at KCT in Jan.

By A. A. Michael Raj

COIMBATORE, NOV. 24. An information technology park promoted by the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) will start functioning at the Kumaraguru College of Technology (KCT), in January next year.

The joint correspondent of the college, A. Selvakumar, told The Hindu here today that the park would come up on one lakh sq. ft. in the Dr. Mahalingam Vigyan Bhavan on the campus.

With single-window clearance from the STPI and readily available data connectivity, companies would be able to lease office space from KCT and commence operations immediately.

"For companies, the advantage is that the space is in a ready-to-occupy condition. Each one of the four floors has 17,000 sq.ft. of area. Location-wise too there is an advantage because the campus is only 12 km from the airport," Mr. Selvakumar said.

Among the companies that were ready to begin operating from the park were three from Coimbatore that were looking for expansion, two from Hyderabad, and five or six from Chennai. The location was ideal for companies in the information technology enabled services (ITES) sector.

"Coimbatore has five universities, 25 engineering colleges, and 85 arts, science and commerce colleges that can provide qualified people for ITES companies. Operations cost could be 25 per cent cheaper than Chennai. Moreover, non-metro employees are expected to be more loyal, with lower attrition rates," he added.

At first, the focus had been on firms engaged in research and development (R&D), but it had turned out to be difficult to get them to come to "secondary cities" such as Coimbatore, when there were established places like Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Cost, vital factor

Cost was an important factor in the operation of business enterprises involved in ITES, business process outsourcing (BPO), remote support and transcription. With profit margins coming down, the focus had now shifted to secondary cities with educated human resource.

"For the college, the existence of the IT park on the campus will benefit students and faculty in the form of industry-institute interaction. Our students will be able to do projects with these companies, and our faculty can do consultancy work," he said.

The Vigyan Bhavan would witness activity within the next four weeks. "People will start moving in from the first of January. The STPI office is getting ready and by the first of February we may have the formal inauguration, though companies would have started operations much earlier," he added.

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