Smart City @ Kochi: 100,000 jobs likely

Kerala has edged out hot infotech destinations like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai to bag a prestigious foreign investment project.

The Dubai Internet City has picked up Kochi to set up a Smart City project.

The initial investment for the Smart City, being executed by the DIC management will be over $400 million. The Smart City would come up in a vast, 1,000 acres of land on the outskirts of Kochi, where the state government has set up the Infopark.

The proposed Smart City is likely to generate direct employment for 80,000 people and provide indirect employment to another 20,000 people.

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The core area of activities of the companies functioning in the Smart City will be Information Technology (IT), IT Enabled Services and Bio-technology.

The DIC is a premium information technology park in Asia and West Asia. It is a strategic base for companies targeting emerging markets in a vast region extending from the Middle East to the Indian subcontinent, and Africa to the CIS countries, covering 1.6 billion people and GDP of $1.1 trillion.

Early this month, a four-member DIC delegation led by director Fareed Abdul Rahman, chief planning and business development officer Deepak Padmanabhan, architecture and construction chief Adil Abdellah and real estate properties manager Baju George visited the land in Kochi that the state government offered.

States like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh had also roped in the DIC officials offering land and other amenities.

But pleased with the scenic settings and the lush greenery of Kerala, the DIC management has now given an expression of interest to the state government stating that it would set up the Smart City in Kochi.

Officials in Kerala's IT Mission said that the Smart City will be an extension of the Dubai Internet City in Dubai. A self-contained campus with residential buildings, schools and an entertainment complex, the Smart City will facilitate the functioning of information and communication technology companies.

The Smart City will operate just like the DIC, which offers foreign companies 100 per cent tax-free ownership, 100 per cent repatriation of capital and profits, no currency restrictions, easy registration and licensing, stringent cyber regulations, protection of intellectual property.