The State government on Tuesday inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Cognizant, a NASDAQ-listed, USheadquartered provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services to lease out 15 acres of land in Kochi Infopark Phase II.

Industries Minister P K Kunhalikutty, Infopark CEO Gigo Joseph, IT special secretary K S Srinivas, Joseph Korah, head of Cognizant’s Kochi operations and Anand Bhushan, senior associate general counsel of Cognizant were present.

Cognizant’s new campus in Infopark Phase II ,when fully completed, will have a built-up area of 1.6 million sq.ft.

and a capacity to accommodate around 12,000 professionals.

Planned for a campus development in various phases, Cognizant will chip in Rs 250 crore for the first phase and it will consist of a 5.5 lakh sq.

ft.software development block meant to house over 4,000 professionals.

Cognizant, presently, has over 1,500 professionals working from the first phase of Kochi Infopark.

Speaking on the occasion, Industries minister P K Kunhalikutty said that with the recent release of the ‘Emerging Kerala’ tagline, the government has been strongly advocating that Kerala is a land of great opportunities.

“With big IT names like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Oracle, HCL, Cognizant and Capgemini setting up offices in the state, it is very obvious that Kerala is becoming a hot IT destination and an investmentfriendly state.

Today, we are on the brim of the next phase of IT growth in Kerala and the government assures all support to all companies who will play a key role in the development of the state as a leading IT hub of the country,” he promised.

“We are committed to grow our operations in Kochi and tapping into the world-class talent in the state of Kerala,” said R Chandrasekaran, president and managing director, Global Delivery, Cognizant.

Infopark has ambitious plans to become one of the major IT Park clusters in the country.

Ever since its inception in 2004, Infopark is well known among the IT/ ITES investors for its potential and is currently expanding to new locations in Cherthala and Koratty.

Infopark Phase II is planned in a PPP model by inviting investments from IT companies and other infrastructure developers.

Source:http://ibnlive.in.com/news/kerala-aims-to-be-the-countrys-biggest-it-hub/228237-60-122.html

Kerala IT in its pursuit to become a leading IT/ITES destination in the country had recently announced the next phase of expansion of Infopark last year in 160 acres of land at the Kunnathunadu and Puthencuruz village. Hon. Chief Minister of Kerala V S Achuthanandan had laid the foundation stone for the new building on November 28, 2009. Now Kerala IT has floated Request of Proposals from internationally reputed master planners of IT Parks for undertaking Master Planning for Infopark Kochi Phase II for a total built up space of approximately 8 million sq.ft.

Infopark in the last two years have been growing fast and is already home to over 10,000 IT professionals working in world class companies like Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, ACS, US Technologies, IBS, Arbitron, Zerone Consulting, NHR Outsourcing, SIT Mobile, Alcatel Lucent, etc. Spokes of Kochi Infopark in Koratty, Cherthala and Ambalapuzha were inaugurated along with ramp up of co-developer projects including L&T, Leela Group and Brigade.

With the phase II of Infopark, this growth will be fuelled by capitalizing the advantages that Kerala IT has to offer with its robust infrastructure and connectivity. The park will offer the first plug and play BPO facility in the State. The park will be operational by December 2011 and will house domestic parks as well as Special Economic Zones for IT/ITES. The domestic park in this new phase is aimed at creating cost effective infrastructure for the BPO industry. The current financial year’s budget of Government of Kerala has an allocation Rs.50 crores towards infrastructure development schemes for the phase II of Infopark.

“We are inviting RFPs from consultants of international repute to build up the Phase II of Infopark as a facility at par with any facility globally. Like past projects, Infopark will act as a single point developer of basic infrastructure facilities such as substation, power distribution, internal road system, water intake, treatment and storage, data& communication connectivity, land development, compound wall, guest house, common food courts, etc. The work on the first phase will commence after July, 2010 and Infopark Phase 2 will play a pivotal role in helping us sustain the current growth momentum” said Infopark CEO, Siddhartha Bhattacharya.

“The location for the phase II being very scenic, we also want the consultants to ideate how to utilize this location to simultaneously promote Green IT. We plan to develop the campus to tap into future emerging high growth areas like data centers, domestic services as well as renewable areas and the campus design will reflect high efficiency and employee friendly amenities.” He added. “The park when fully completed is expected to generate around 80,000 jobs in IT/ITES/BPO sector apart from the large scale of jobs expected to be created in the services sector.”

“Infopark, Kochi is gaining momentum with the series of developments taking place in the campus. With the RFP floated for phase II expansion, we hope to see some good internationally reputed firms associating with us to establish a world-class campus in Kochi for global IT/ITES companies. The Phase II expansion has already generated a great deal of interest among large cross sections of the IT industry. We will leverage Infopark’s current growth and tap Kochi’s untapped potential to generate differentiated value for the companies that will set shop in Infopark Phase 2″ Said Dr Ajay Kumar IAS, Principal Secretary of Kerala.

Source:http://www.indiaprwire.com/pressrelease/information-technology/2010042949381.htm