KOZHIKODE: Palazhy, a tiny town in the Olavanna grama panchayat, once a calm locale in the city suburbs, has been witnessing giant strides in IT development during the last few years. Thanks to the IT boom with the coming up of start-ups, IT companies at CafIT Square, the venture of the Calicut Forum for IT (CafIT) at HiLite business park, two Cyber parks, one under the government sector and another of the Uralungal Cyber Park under the Cooperative sector.
There are more than 60 companies working in the IT sector in the city of which a majority are located in the Cyber Parks and IT zones coming up in and around Palazhy. CafIT Square, which began with a few companies two years ago, now has 14 companies. Uralungal Cyber Park has 13 companies which have already started operations whereas the Government Cyber Park has only four. K.G. Radhakrishnan of CafIT told DC that many companies located elsewhere either switched to the cyber parks located in the Palazhy region or were planning to launch their own centres in nearby spots.
“The accessibility from the city, the National Highway bypass and the green environs around adds to the charm of the locale”, he added. Meanwhile, the second layer of start-ups have gradually mushroomed in the locality with youngsters starting their own IT initiatives with hired offices around IT parks. Arun Das of Inall Technologies told DC that most of the new initiatives were offering allied services like website promotion, online campaign, software services and marketing solutions.
“Many of the new ventures are led by those who earlier worked in the mega cyber parks”, he said, adding “but owning an office in the mega setups in parks is still a distant dream for these cash strapped start-ups”. The increase in the number of companies and new IT and Business Parks also resulted in all-round progress of the region including the Olavanna panchayat. Recently a business park under construction remitted Rs 69 lakhs as license fee to the panchayat. Olavanna Village panchayat president K. Thankamani told DC that there was a steady increase in the revenue of the village panchayat in the last few years.
