New IT Bull’s Eye: Kerala’s Backwaters

Kerala might just be the next in line to give Bangalore and Hyderabad, a run for their money. One need not wonder why. Facts speak for themselves. Not only does Kerala have the highest overall telephone density (7/100 residents) and the highest rural telephone density (5.1/100 residents), all of its 988 exchanges are digital, and are connected by optical fiber cable (OFC) to the National Internet Backbone. Besides, every single village Panchayat (1,468 in all) is within 3 kms of a digital exchange.

The good news does not end here. All the 14 district headquarters and 63 taluka headquarters are covered by this seamless network–which is being further strengthened by the OFC backbones being laid by Reliance, Bharti and Asianet. The above advantages, along with the ‘SEA-ME-WE-3’ and ‘SAFE’ submarine cable landings at Kochi with 15 Gbps bandwidth, place Kerala in a position to serve bandwidth-intensive IT industries. This infrastructure will be further augmented through a co-ordinated effort between the Government of Kerala, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and VSNL — who have entered into a tri-partite MoU that will leapfrog the state to the forefront with assured response, ‘quality of service’ and accountability for communication delivery.

Talking about Kerala and its IT initiatives, one cannot ignore the Technopark in Thiruvanthapuram, which is currently under the process of expansion. The completion of the new building ‘Gayatri’ has already added one lakh square feet to the complex and with another building ‘Bhavani’ coming up, another two lakh square feet will be added. The existing built-up space for the Technopark is approximately one million square feet. The first two buildings Pamba and Periyar have 28 modules with a combined built up space of 60,000 square feet housing 13 companies. The biggest building Nila has 126 modules with a built up space of 4,00,000 square feet, all of which are fully occupied.

There are other companies that have chosen to buy land and set up their own buildings in the complex. This includes Dataware Digital Labs, Tata Consultancy Services and now Hays Document Management (HMD), which has acquired 1.4 acres of land for its new building.

The software hub houses over 5000 professionals from 50-odd companies. The IT/ITES (IT enabled services) policy announced recently is expected to add to this number.

Most of the firms in the Technopark are not exclusively dependent on US markets. Hence the number of firms affected by the US slowdown was relatively low.

The Kerala government took some bold steps in the field of e-governance two years back, that have resulted in a number of initiatives deploying IT for improving administration, efficiency and better services.

The state had set up a monitoring committee comprising secretaries from various departments. Government had then identified 31 departments in the first phase for computerization considering their degree of direct public interface and revenue earnings. Motor vehicles, finance, treasury and registration departments were some of the ones who have been accorded priority in the initial stage. Other initiatives include Friends, IT@School, computerization of treasuries, smart ration card, IT deployment in examinations at the school-level, the establishment of the Indian Institute of Technology and

Management-Kerala (IIITMK) etc.

If facts are to go by, then we surely are to see the state of Kerala emerging as an IT hub from merely being India’s beauty spot.

R Sreekumar/CNS in Thiruvanthapuram

E-governance projects in Kerala

• Friends: This acts as a one-stop shop for payment of a variety of bills and taxes including telephone, motor vehicle tax, property tax, electricity and water charges, land, civil supplies and corporation tax. Initially started in Thiruvananthapuram, the project has over 50,000 customers a month using its offline payment services. A computer controlled queue management system eliminates the rush at 20 different counters and citizens can relax in the comfort of an A/C room as they wait their turn to pay the bills. This concept is likely to be spread to other districts in the state.

• IT@School: After achieving total literacy a decade ago, Kerala is now aiming to achieve total computer literacy. A project called IT@School aims to make computer training compulsory for the VIIIth standard from the academic year 2002-03. IT@School is intended to improve the quality of education imparted including technical training to all students irrespective of their background–rural or urban. 

• E-transport: The Motor vehicles department plans to computerize its back-end operations including the test for learners. According to department officials, the initial phase of this project would soon be implemented in four regional transport offices (RTO) out of the total 18 RTOs and 42 sub RTO’s in the state. National Informatics Centre (NIC) is the total solutions provider for the project. The Kerala Road Transport Corporation has also introduced electronic ticketing machines on a pilot project basis in
  
  Thiruvananthapuram. 

• Registration department: With the help of NIC’s indigenous software, Pearl, the Registration Department has been able to computerize more than 50 of its sub-registrar offices in the state. The registration of documents and its issual can be done within an hour as against a month required earlier. Encumbrance certificates can be issued in 15 minutes as against the two weeks required in the pre-computerization era. 

• Computerization of exam tabulation: Thanks to the heavy deployment of IT, the State Pareeksha Bhavan was able to announce the results of more than five lakh students who appeared for the standard 10 examinations, much ahead of schedule. 

• Setting up of IIITM-K: The setting up of the Indian Institute of Technology and Management-K) is expected to play a pivotal role in Kerala. IIITMK has identified four long-term projects for the development of IT in the state. One of the priorities is the Educational Grid project and function as a link with the IT Industry. IIITMK is also embarking on a pilot tele-medicine project called Pilot Telehealth and Medical Informatics Initiative. This will be in collaboration with the Sreechitra Medical Center and the Regional Cancer Center. 

• Libraries as rural information centers: One library in each of the 14 districts of Kerala is being converted into a rural information center where computers and Internet services would enable members to access a wide variety of information. Local language content relevant at the panchayat level is also being compiled for dissemination through the rural communication network.

The Road Ahead

Hardly three months into the job, chief operating officer of the Kerala IT mission, NR Mahalingam is aware of the challenges ahead of him in projecting the state infrastructure as the “best in the country”. He has earlier worked with Hewlett-Packard and Tata Consultancy Services. Bridging the yawning gap between ‘perception’ and ‘reality’ about Kerala is undoubtedly an arduous task. In a chat with Dataquest, Mahalingam outlines his plans for the future

What is your new strategy for attracting IT investment into the state?



The strategy may be the same, but the approach is different. Earlier, we used to harp on low cost infrastructure and start up costs. Now, we focus on human resources strength, international connectivity, three international airports, seaports, and the package of incentives and concessions announced by the state government.

What are the targets being set by the IT mission?



Our aim is to convert Kerala into a global leader in IT-enabled services in the next five years. Our immediate plan is to bring at least two major IT companies–an Indian or a multinational to invest in the state within the next six months. At the Nasscom-MAIT meet, our energies will be spent on projecting Kerala as an investor-friendly IT ready state.

Despite the obvious strengths that Kerala has, why has it lagged behind in IT?



The perception of investors is completely different from that of the reality that exists here. Our effort is to narrow the gap between perception and reality. In Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, there is little of IT beyond their capital cities Bangalore and Hyderabad. And once the space is saturated, the cities will choke. On the other hand there is no question of saturation of space in Kerala as one can always start a venture anywhere and get the benefit of fiber optic connectivity.

Could you comment on the feasibility of the plan to create additional infrastructure creation in terms of new parks?



Kerala proposes to set up parks in the government sector through joint ventures. There is a feeling that future expansion, especially for the next five to seven years, would be greater in Kerala than in other states in the region. Therefore, additional infrastructure creation is justified. The IT Policy says that total space availability for the IT industry will be augmented by a minimum of 750,000 square feet annually for the next two years. Thereafter, for the next three years, a minimum of 1.5 million square feet space shall be created annually.

Have there been significant inquiries for setting up private parks after the government policy announcement?



We have enquiries from three major cities within the state from the private sector, which includes Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode. In Kozhikode, at least one private park may come up soon.