Kerala to become knowledge society by 2010

BANGALORE: The Kerala IT Mission has announced that the State will become a complete Knowledge society by 2010, thus enabling the State to emerge as the largest IT consumer market in the country.

“The full potential of Kerala will unfold in the next five years. Our business is not just bringing investment to Kerala, but enabling the community as well. Our vision is to make the state a knowledge society where information of a global scale is available to every citizen and he/she is capable of using that information for improvisation of Quality of Life and self-advancement, “said Oommen Chandy, chief minister of Kerala.

State IT secretary, P.H. Kurien said that the Akshaya Project, which began in Malapuram district in 2003, today is moving into seven new districts and will have 1310 e-kendras. The entire State will be covered with 3000 Akshaya e-kendra's by 2006.

“The objective of Akshaya project was to encourage entrepreneurship in the new economy through public-private partnership and bridge the digital divide. Our mission is to have one person in every household in Kerala e-literate by 2007, Kurien said.

Kerala has made IT education mandatory for high school students. “Kerala is the only state in the country where IT Subject is compulsory in the 10th standard board examinations,“ Chandy said.

The State government has also announced its decision to make available 1000 acres for development of IT parks and habitat centers in the next three years. Kerala now has four IT Parks of which two are Government initiatives namely, Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram and Infopark, Kochi.

The other two IT Parks are private-public initiatives - L&T 'infocity' and the Leela IT Park.