The Kerala government is planning to set up work-near-home facilities for various organisations, especially information technology (IT) firms. The tenders for site acquisition are expected to start by next month, and the project will go live by October this year, if all goes well as per plan.
It is hoped that this move will resolve issues, such as power failure, or poor connectivity faced by employees who are working from home. Hotels, buildings and unoccupied houseboats which are lying idle owing to the lull in tourism are the potential sites, which will be transformed into co-working spaces by the government.
Work is also going on to set up a high-speed internet project in the state by December this year. The plan is to take this forward in two phases.
In the first phase, to maximise the work flow with minimum risk to the employees’ health, buildings will be acquired to set up office spaces within the neighbourhood of the employees. Approx. 100 co-working spaces covering about least 5000 sq. ft. within the cities and towns will be set up.
In the second phase, idle properties such as resorts and houseboats that are currently unoccupied, will be converted into work-near-home spaces.
A survey has been conducted to take into account ideas and suggestions from all stakeholder companies.
Kerala’s IT revenues is expected to dip by Rs. 4,500 crore by the end of this year and the state will witness a loss of close to 26,000 direct and around 80,000 indirect jobs in the IT industry.
