Kerala aiming to create 1 lakh IT jobs over next 5 years

Kochi: Kerala is aiming to create 100,000 employment opportunities in the IT sector in the state by providing a 10 million sq ft built-space in the next five years. The approach paper prepared by the Planning Board for the 13th five-year plan stated that “main means of employment creation in the IT sector is the provision of built-up space, with basic infrastructure included, which is then leased out to the private sector”.  Employment creation has been identified as the thrust area by the paper.

“We expect that 10 million sq ft (capable of generating 100,000 jobs) of built-up space will be completed over the XIII Plan period”, the paper said.

Another major suggestion in the approach paper is the creation of a single integrated data portal by collating date from a large number of government sources. The platform suggested to be named as Diamond Jubilees Spatial Data Portal aims for integration of disparate kinds of data from a wide variety of government departments, agencies and institutions on a common platform. The approach paper has stated that “such integration will help to prevent duplication of efforts by departments”.

The paper says “while the IT department will be responsible for maintaining the requisite hardware, operating systems and basic software platform, the data itself may be uploaded by those who have collected and or analysed the data”. Development of human resources and promotion of start-up ecosystem are the other major focus areas for IT sector in the paper. Public access to high-speed digital services and development missions are also identified as thrust areas.