Mangaluru: Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), Mangaluru has written a letter to IT and Deputy Chief Minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan, demanding that an IT Park be set up in Mangaluru.
Informing the minister in his letter, KCCI president Isaac Vas said that the Mangaluru-Udupi (Manipal) region is known as the education hub of Karnataka. There are more than 20 engineering colleges and hundreds of non-engineering colleges from where thousands of students graduate every year. These are highly committed resources, with high productivity, less commuting time etc. However, there is a lack of job opportunities for these graduates in Mangaluru. Even among the lateral skilled employees, many prefer to work in Bengaluru as there aren’t many employment opportunities for their spouses or even for themselves in the future. This lack of an IT ecosystem puts additional pressure on Bengaluru, where the government is already contemplating decongestion as part of the new proposed IT policy of 2019, he said in the letter.
Currently, there are more than 150 IT companies operating out of Mangaluru, along with some successful homegrown companies like Robosoft, Diya Systems, Semnox etc. There are also many companies with 5-30 employees. However, not many commercial spaces are available at a reasonable cost for these companies, in or around the city. These companies either have to migrate to Bengaluru to grow or they need to be housed in suitable working spaces that will enable them to fast-track their growth. Hence, establishing an IT Park within Mangaluru a solution to change the status, he stressed.
