However, Technopark, though being an early bird, has not been able to corner any significant portion of the IT exports. The reason has been the absence of internationally known IT majors at the park. One of the attractions of DIC is that it has an assurance from the major companies at its Dubai facility to extend operations to the proposed Smart City in Kochi.
There are perhaps the sceptics who argue that desi biggies like Infosys, Wipro and tcs are already in Kerala and that the state doesn't need to go after Dubai. Microsoft, Oracle, HP, IBM, Compaq, Dell, Siemens, Canon, Logica, Sony Ericsson and Cisco are among the companies on the list for Kochi
Kerala's compulsions in reaching out and inviting foreign facilitators is because non-resident Keralite (NRK) remittances are dwindling and the workers have started coming back from the Gulf. With nearly 23,000 engineering graduates coming out of colleges every year in Kerala and the state's employment exchanges swollen with the educated unemployed, there is a pressing need for creating opportunities at home.
The NRKs who feel the heat of the Opposition propaganda have launched an online drive against it. Kerala IT Workers Forum's online petition has been getting more than 300 e-mails daily and the forum motto is 'Let us unite for development'. The forum has thought of some extreme steps if the nay-sayers do not back down. It threatens that political parties and institutions opposing IT development may be denied funds and donations from the Gulf and US and other IT locations in India.
Chandy's request to the Left is to allow him to do what his counterpart Buddhadeb Bhattacharya does in West Bengal. Chandy points out that West Bengal had given land at 15 to 20 per cent of the market value at Salt Lake in Calcutta for private projects. The chief minister also accuses the Opposition of doublespeak in and out of power. The Left government, he says, had no qualms in bringing Coca-Cola to the parched zones of Palakkad. Now the Left is agitating against Coke pumping out huge volumes of ground water from the region.
The eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between Chandy and Achuthanandan has only queered the pitch, with bureaucrats now having to rework the conditions to counter Opposition charges. And it has to be seen whether the project will move beyond the inking of the MoU.
