Aruna Sundararajan, Kerala's energetic IT secretary, is spearheading an initiative to make the investment-short state a haven for the IT and ITES industry

Chennai: Leveraging the equity of its well-known slogan - 'God's Own Country' - Kerala, the picturesque southern state of India, is now wooing IT and IT-enabled services (ITES) companies with a new slogan: 'God's Own e-State'. Says Aruna Sundararajan, Kerala's savvy IT secretary: "It is a major branding initiative started four months back. And it has started yielding results, thank you."

The negative investor perception ("a state with devil's own people - educated and vocal populace") has been hindering industrial investments coming to the state. Since there was little industry in the state the state's environment did not get affected, though the tourism industry flourished.

But one cannot expect just the tourism industry to feed the entire populace and also lift the Keralites' standard of living. Moreover, with neighbouring states (Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh) marching ahead in the IT sector, Kerala - though a tad late - is now determined to attract IT and ITES units stressing on its unique selling proposition: the scenic and salubrious locale.

The god's own e-state is not afflicted with problems that Chennai (water scarcity, with residents including software geeks fighting it out in the streets for drinking water) and Hyderabad and Bangalore (power shortage) face.

On the telecom connectivity front (the lifeline of the IT sector), Kerala enjoys the advantage of having two submarine cable landings. Also this is a state where 100 per cent of the telephone exchanges are digital, 98 per cent of them are connected by optic-fibre cable to the National Internet Backbone and the 15GBps bandwidth supported by VSNL's primary international gateway in India, in Kochi.

The state scores high on the cost front, too. The fully burdened cost works out to $8 per hour as against the global average of $15 per hour. Similarly, the rentals are lower by more than 60 per cent when compared to other cities.

A mother a son and a daughter, Sundararajan, a 1982 batch IAS officer, is a post-graduate in philosophy (University of Madras). Her earlier assignment was as industries department secretary. As her husband Elias George is the labour ministry secretary it is quite natural for her to take a holistic view of the issues involved to attract investments.

The last one year has seen big names like Infosys Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services, Ernst and Young, McKinsey & Co, Allianz Cornhill and Sify erecting their tents in the state.

"We are actively wooing seven large global ITES companies to set up their base in Kerala," says a hopeful Sundararajan. Achieving a 100-per cent literacy rate long ago, Kerala is now planning to become a 100-per cent e-literate state. A novel programme called Akshaya is being implemented as a pilot project in the backward district of Malappuram.

Sundararajan talks to domain-b about Kerala's strategy to attract the IT sector. Excerpts:

Tell us as about the Kerala government's IT initiative.
We are focusing on three areas. The first step is to establish an environment to attract investments and follow it up with an efficient branding exercise. The branding is done along with the tourism ministry and the visibility is quite good.

The next step is to build the human resource capacity in order to meet the requirements of the companies. This is to be achieved through our People First programme. Under this scheme, three organisations [NIIT, Aptech and Hero Mind] will conduct IT and ITES training classes. We hope 5,000 people will get trained in the first year. We have also tied up with the British Council to conduct spoken English courses.

The third area is e-governance. We are working on a project to connect the entire state with a data centre in Thiruvananthapuram and two network operating centres in two other cities. This work will be over by March next year. The other two major IT initiatives are computerising the transport department and ensuring local self-governance on a BOT [build-operate-transfer] basis.

Is Kerala open to private sector participation?
Yes. For the first time in its history the Kerala government is working on a significant scale with the private sector. The bidding process will be completed in four-to-six months' time. Now there is a readiness to partner with the private sector. We plan to invest around Rs 100 crore on the e-governance initiative, excluding the BOT project.

Unless the government computerises its offices, investments in e-governance will be a non-starter and will be restricted to the pilot project.
We have realised this and have started the process for computerisation of the secretariat at an outlay of Rs 73 crore; already Rs 12 crore has been spent. Alongside we will also computerise the collectorates, transport department and local bodies.

We also plan to set up a six-seat call centre in the state to answer queries about driving licence, civil supplies, water and power supplies. Nevertheless, we are yet to decide whether to outsource this activity or have it in-house.

Any plans to expand the Technopark and the Infopark?
Both the parks are following the expansion route. Land measuring 250 acres has been chosen for expanding the Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram and 100 acres for the Infopark in Kochi. A 2-lakh-sq ft built-up area is nearing completion at the Infopark. In the next two years we plan to spend around Rs 200 crore on these projects.

How is your Akshaya programme progressing?
Akshaya is our pilot programme in building IT capacity among the masses. Under this programme we hope to make at least one person in the 7-lakh families living in Malappuram district computer and Internet literate. More than 4 lakh people have been trained to operate a computer.

How is the programme structured?
We invited small entrepreneurs to set up computer centres where the people will be trained. Over 600 entrepreneurs saw some business potential and set up centres, each investing around Rs 2 lakh. For the trainee the fee will be Rs 20 with the balance Rs 100 being shared by gram/block and the district panchayats. For the first time in India one district boasts of over 3,500 computers installed. The Akshaya e-centres will start offering varied services from next January onwards.