Karnataka - Mysore   

KEONICS plans to develop IT parks in tier-II cities

MYSORE: After a lull, the Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation Limited (KEONICS) is foraying into Tier-II cities to develop Information Technology (IT) parks.

The IT Park in Hubli was the first and only facility developed by it in Tier-II category for the growth of IT sector.

Owing to “positive” response to its market survey conducted recently, KEONICS, which has developed the IT Park in Electronics City in Bangalore on 332 acres of land housing over 135 renowned companies, has proposed to develop IT Parks in Mysore and Mangalore, the fastest growing Tier-II cities in the State.

The cities have the potential to be developed as promising IT destinations after Bangalore.

The IT Park in Mysore will come up near Infosys campus in Hebbal industrial area in the city.

According to KEONICS, many IT and BPO companies have moved to the tier-II cities to tap the competitive cost advantage in operations, availability of local qualified manpower and the minimum attrition levels, besides having lesser infrastructure woes.

In the first phase, KEONICS plans to develop IT Parks in Mysore and Mangalore on Public-Private Participation (PPP) mode.

If the project gets the expected response, the parks would be expanded in the second phase, sources on KEONICS said.

The park will come up in one acre of land and the total built-up area of the park in each city will be around one lakh square feet.

Sources told The Hindu, that KEONICS has five acres of land in Hebbal industrial area and the park will come up in one acre land under PPP model.

The land in Mangalore is located near STPI and opposite to AJ Hospital campus.

Despite economic downturn, the KEONICS has come forward to develop the IT Parks in the tier-II cities, on behalf of the Government of Karnataka, overwhelmed over the “favourable response” it received to its market survey, which was conducted to study feasibility of having the IT facility in the cities.

The IT Park project for the two cities was in mind before, but was put off perhaps due to slump in economic activity. Based on the survey recently, the corporation revived its proposal on IT parks and accordingly invited interested developers, investors, consortiums, IT firms and BPO firms to a one level system of selection of the bidder for the projects, the sources said.

KEONICS holds prime land in these two towns with a strategic fit for developing IT parks and wants to select a bidder who shall design, finance, build, market, operate and transfer the asset created at the end of the lease term to the corporation.

The IT Park in Hubli was developed in 2002 and the total built up area of 1.75 lakh square feet area was created for the IT and BPO companies.

However, only 75,000 sq feet of space was occupied in the park, since its inception.

“Bangalore is getting congested. IT and BPO companies keen to operate in the State may have to consider tier-II cities for launching the operations as land is becoming scarce in the capital. Moreover, the government is giving a big push to tier-II cities in order to prepare them for the future and facilitate development on a faster pace,” the sources add.

If the IT park project gets good response and companies take possession of the entire space created at the facilities in the two cities, the KEONICS may think of expanding the facility for accelerating the IT growth further.

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