Friday, November 22, 2013: The Union government has given its nod to the Kerala state government to set up electronics software manufacturing clusters. The state has reportedly received an in-principal approval from the department of electronics and information technology to set up electronic parks at Infopark and Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Kinfra) land in Kochi. The government has plans to establish the clusters under the public-private partnership (PPP) model.
According to a TOI report, talks were held between the state industries and IT minister P K Kunhalikkutty and electronics and IT department secretary S Ajay Kumar in New Delhi on Thursday. An official from the IT state IT department was quoted as saying, “Following the introduction of the policy on electronics by the Union government, the electronics and information technology department can offer a lot of technical and financial aid to state governments. Our effort was to avail such benefits.”
“We have already submitted proposals for two clusters in Kinfra and Infopark. For one cluster, land is available at Infopark in Kakkanad. In the case of Kinfra, we will have to identify land. A proposal for the Amballoor electronic park will also be submitted to the Union government soon,” he added.
After the central department gets the final approval, the state government will prepare a detailed report of the project which will require an investment of at least Rs 5000 million.