Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 30 (KNN) The Kerala government has recently introduced the draft Information Technology Policy 2023.

This policy seeks to provide a series of incentives designed to boost further growth in the IT sector. It also aims to promote the establishment of private IT parks in the state.

The policy sets a target for the State to garner 10 per cent of the IT and electronics industry market share of the country in the next 5 years and making a push in the space industries sector with a specialised park.

As per the policy, private IT parks will be encouraged and the current incentives of the IT parks will be extended to these by way of affiliations. In the four IT development corridors to be identified by the government, any private building with an IT seating capacity of 1,000 or more will be deemed as a private IT park and will enjoy all privileges available for units with the government IT park.

To encourage more private developers, the government will provide up to 50 per cent reimbursement of land tax for a period of 5 years for private IT parks and co-developers.

One of the novel initiatives proposed is the land-pooling mechanism, in which groups of landowners pool their land and hand it over to a government agency for leasing to private investors for the development of IT infrastructure projects. It is aimed at saving the time involved in the traditional land acquisition process, reported the Hindi.

To support large-scale co-developers to set up facilities within the IT parks or land owned by government agencies, the Government will provide encumbrance-free land with a phased payment option for the land owned by the Government.

An IT/ITES organisation with 25 employees or more operating from a leased built-up space in a government-owned IT Park, can claim salary reimbursement as a rent discount, 5 per cent of the monthly rent, maximum up to Rs 15,000/month, for one year for providing permanent employment to transgender persons in the campus. Similar financial aid is applicable for neurodivergent and people with disabilities. Organisations with 50 per cent or more women employees working from the campus, will be eligible for 10 per cent discount on base rent, for a period of 12 months.

All the incentives applicable as per the State Industrial Policy approved in March 2023 will be extended to companies in the KSPACE space park. The new Digital Transformation Mission announced as part of the policy will design and implement specific programmes in different sectors and vocations to enable their digital transformation.

An exclusive Electronic Industry policy for the development of the Electronics Industry will be released separately.

(KNN Bureau)