Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 13 (IANS) Mumbai-based Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) will build an IT Park in Kalamassery, Kochi. The 70-acre IT Park, named HDIL Cybercity, will be built at a cost of Rs.20 billion.
HDIL, a part of the Wadhawan group, is investing in HDIL Cybercity through its subsidiary company Blue Star Realtors Pvt Ltd, HDIL chairman Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan told reporters here.
‘The park would be spread over 70 acres and would have a total built up area of 7.9 million sq feet, of which 5.4 million sq ft will be used for IT ventures. The remaining will be for hotels, service apartments, shopping malls, clubhouses, schools and residential structures,’ said Wadhawan.
HDIL Cybercity will be a catalyst in Kerala’s economic growth and is expected to generate 65,000 new jobs. The project is expected to require 9 million man-days to build.
HDIL has already appointed well-known architectural firm Aedas as consultants for the project.
Aedas, currently the fourth largest architectural practice in the world, were consultants to many large-scale infrastructure projects. These include the international cruise terminal, Xiamen, China, Crossrail in London, and Pentominium Tower, the world’s tallest residential tower in Dubai.
HDIL is the flagship construction and real estate development company of the Wadhawan Group with market capitalisation of over Rs.100 billion.
The company focuses on construction and development of IT Parks and integrated IT cities. It is developing 115 million sq ft in Mumbai metropolitan region, Hyderabad, Pune and Kochi.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/070913/43/6kpqe.html

Our Bureau
Kochi, Nov. 20 Anzera Properties plans to build a Grade-A exclusive IT shopping mall for retailers and wholesalers of IT products in Kochi. Developed along the lines of IT malls in Hong Kong, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, this will be the first IT mall in Kerela, said a press release issued here .
Once completed the project would be a one-stop shop for both individual customers and corporate clients. The mall would encompass modern facilities, ensure availability of hardware and software products across brands and offer an ideal shopping experience. Focus on brand equity
Mr Ziad A. Rahman, CEO of Anzera Properties, said that the company has planned an ambitious growth strategy for the next five years and will focus on building a brand equity in the State.
The company plans to build two million sq. feet of residential and commercial properties in Kochi by 2009-10, the release said.
http://www.blonnet.com/2007/11/21/stories/2007112151712300.htm

Kochi, Nov. 2 The Cochin International Airport (CIAL) has chalked out an ambitious expansion plan for setting up an airport city (Aerotropolis) in Kerala.
Tthe company is in the process of implementing a master plan envisaging an aircraft maintenance, repair and overall facility, aviation academy, hotels, 18-hole golf course, convention/exhibition centre, logistics centre and amusement park. Mr Shriram Bharath, MD of CIAL, unveiled these plans at the Global World Class Airports conference held at Dubai. CIAL was invited by the organisers Marcus Evans to participate in the conference .

V. Sajeev Kumar
The project will be located in 55 acres of land in Puzhakkal with a man-made lake covering 6.5 acres with a 10 miles walkway around the lake.
Thrissur May 13 The Bangalore-based Sobha Developers Ltd (SDL) has announced the launch of its first integrated township “Sobha City” in Kerala at Thrissur on Saturday.
Mr P.N.C. Menon, Chairman, Sobha Developers Ltd, said at a press meet that the company would be investing Rs 850 crore towards the project and aims to complete it by May 2011. Apart from being the first integrated township by SDL, Sobha City is also the largest project by the company till date, he said.
The project will be located in 55 acres of land in Puzhakkal with a man-made lake covering 6.5 acres with a 10 miles walkway around the lake. The company plans to construct 3 million sq ft, which will comprise 2.5 million for residential purpose and the rest for commercial.
According to Mr Menon, tier II cities offer tremendous potential for real estate development. “We aim to capitalise on the growing demands of Tier II cities by offering the best of facilities to the consumers. Sobha City is our effort to fulfil the aspirations of people and will be able to generate substantial employment opportunities for local apart from attracting investments in the region,” he added.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr J.C. Sharma, Managing Director, Sobha Developers, said that company also had plans to develop properties in nine cities in different parts of the country. The properties, which would be developed in the current fiscal, would be in Pune, Mysore and Coimbatore.
A team of in-house architects at SDL has designed Sobha City. It will house 423 apartments, 216 four-bedroom apartments and 13 villas in the first phase. It will also house a world-class business hotel with six floors, global mall and entertainment centre.
http://www.blonnet.com/2007/05/14/stories/2007051401731900.htm

Mega projects are fruitioning one by one

**SPM commissioned.

**Vallarapadam construction starts.

**Petronet LNG to award construction contract in Dec 2007.

Trial run of SPM facility soon

Staff Reporter

Very large crude carrier to arrive in a week

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SPM facility to reduce cost of crude transport

SPM facility costs Rs. 750 crore

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KOCHI: The Single Point Mooring (SPM) facility set up for Bharat Petroleum Corporation-Kochi Refinery is expecting its first very large crude carrier (VLCC) to arrive within a week for the first of its trial runs. The Hindu - full story

Dedicated terminal for LCCs to come up at Kochi International Airport by 2011

Thursday, November 29, 2007 (16:00 IST)By Mayuresh Pawar | Kochi

Cochin International Airport Ltd. (CIAL) will be setting-up a dedicated no-frills terminal for Low Cost Carriers (LCCs) at the Kochi International Airport by 2011. The terminal will be constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 100 crore during the third phase of the airport upgradation project that will commence before end of 2009, S Bharath, Managing Director, CIAL told TravelBiz Monitor on the sidelines of the Airport Expansion India Congress (AEIC) 2007 held recently at Hyatt Regency, Mumbai.

Currently, LCCs such as Air India Express, SpiceJet, Deccan, GoAir and IndiGo daily flights from the Kochi International Airport. “In the next five years, many more LCCs will fly in the Indian skies. We need to gear-up and be prepared to make the most of the booming aviation industry, especially the no-frills segment. With this in consideration, we are building a 300-acre fully-dedicated LCC terminal at the Kochi International Airport,” said Bharath. Full story

Entrepreneurs take to the sky with regional airlines
30 Nov, 2007, 0229 hrs IST,Vishakha Talreja & Shruti Chauhan, TNN

NEW DELHI: A booming economy, and the profits thereof, is letting a host of entrepreneurs take their goals sky-high, literally. An increasing number of businessmen are entering the aviation business.

Sample this. Kochi-based Emric Aviation is a proposed regional carrier promoted by Martin Sebastian, a Kerala-based real estate and infrastructure developer who has diversified into the hospitality and SEZ development businesses, and digital film production. Says chief executive Muhaimin Saidu, “All one needs to start a regional carrier is good entrepreneurial skills and capital investment. While I have worked as an aircraft engineer, we are a team of people from different backgrounds.”

The company is targeting cities like Madurai, Trichy, Coimbatore and Mysore, and is in negotiations with Bombardier and Embraer for its aircraft fleet. “Cochin had 25% passenger growth year on year and this will be the first Cochin-based airline. We are targeting cities such as Madurai, Trichy and Mysore, which are commercial hubs.”

Full story

India Plans High-Tech ‘Smart City’
Zone To Encourage Foreign Companies’ Operations, With Few Hassles
COCHIN, India, Nov. 19, 2004
(CBS/AP) Southern India’s Kerala state plans to create a 1,000-acre zone called “Smart City,” where technology companies from around the world will be invited to set up operations, an official said Friday. Some of the companies lured to Smart City are likely to American. The area, outside Cochin city, will include office space, residences, schools and an entertainment complex, said Kerala’s Industry Minister P. K. Kunjalikutty. It will include software developers and call centers — two of the Indian economy’s fastest growing sectors. Indian programmers earn roughly one-sixth the $60,000 U.S. average. “Smart City … will be an exclusive IT zone where foreign companies can easily set up shop without any stringent formalities of registration and licensing,” Kunjalikutty said. Indian states are competing with each other to court investments from information technology companies, trying to emulate the success of the southern technology hubs of Bangalore and Hyderabad, which have spearheaded the country’s IT boom. Kerala, known for its highly educated work force, has been trying to make up for lost time after India’s economic boom of the past decade largely bypassed the state because potential investors were frightened away by its powerful, militant labor unions. But Kunjalikutty said his state’s labor force has been changing fast, and information technology companies had not faced any union troubles. Smart City will be created and managed by Dubai’s Internet City, a free trade zone backed by the Middle Eastern country’s government. It is being built with an initial investment of $400 million. It was not yet clear whether Smart City would be a free trade zone, or would simply offer assistance to potential investors. Dubai’s Internet City offers foreign companies 100 percent tax-free ownership, no currency restrictions, easy registration and licensing and protection of intellectual property, its Web site said. Cynthia Kroll, senior regional economist at the University of California, Berkeley, said U.S. policymakers can’t afford to ignore outsourcing. “If R&D is coming out of India, will the next wave of growth bypass us entirely?” Kroll asked. “We need to pay attention to what India and China and these other countries are doing to get these new rounds of investment.” American workers may be among the most productive in the world, but they also make on average $16 an hour, and benefits add another six bucks on top of that, reports CBS News Correspondent Anthony Mason. A foreign worker with comparable skills comes at a fraction of the cost. “Protecting jobs leads to job destruction, because if we try to prevent outsourcing, it’ll just make American business less competitive in the world market. And that will lead to overall job destruction. So for me there’s no choice here. We have to outsource,” said Marc Andreesen, head of the California-based software company Opsware, which helps businesses cut costs by automating. Last March, Andreesen said he was planning to hire workers in India or Brazil. “By doing that, what I want to be able to do is get more bang for the buck out of those jobs, so that I can grow faster and so I can hire more people in the U.S.,” he said. The Information Technology Association of America, in a survey last March, acknowledged that the migration of tech jobs to low-paid foreigners has eliminated 104,000 American jobs so far, nearly 3 percent of the positions in the U.S. tech industry. “The myth is that we’ve started this long decline into the midnight of the technology work force,” ITAA president Harris Miller said. “Assuming the recovery continues, the number of IT jobs will actually increase.” According to the report, savings from outsourcing allowed companies to create 90,000 new jobs in 2003, with more than one in 10 of them in Silicon Valley or elsewhere in California, researchers said. The report predicts that in 2008, outsourcing will create 317,000 jobs - 34,000 in California. The ITAA describes itself as a trade group for IT industries ranging from computers, software and telecommunications to the Internet and professional services. Its board of directors includes representatives of major IT firms including AT&T, EDS, Northrop Grumman, and Amazon.com, and its members include Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard.
©MMIV CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/19/tech/main656681.shtml#share

Urgent adminstrative steps needed to save Metro rail from legal wrangles.

Meet on metro
Staff Reporter

Kochi: A special meeting to discuss the proposed Metro Rail project will be held here early next month. Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan will attend the meeting, District Collector A.P.M. Mohammed Hanish said.

Officials from the finance, transportation and planning departments are expected to attend the meeting.

The meeting comes close on the heels of the Collectors’ conference that ended last week. During the meeting, the Collector informed the government that unless immediate steps were taken the project would face unforeseen obstacles. The Collector recommended launching of the land acquisition process without delay. The Hindu story

Big Ticket investment in one more IT SEZ from FALCON

Falcon`s freight station to take wings on Nov 23
BS Reporter / Kochi November 14, 2007

Kerala’s first full-fledged container freight station (CFS) in the private sector, developed by Falcon Infrastructures Limited, will be operational from November 23. The station has been set up at a cost of Rs 25 crore on 10.2 acres of land adjacent to the existing integrated service complex of the Falcon group at Kalamassery near Kochi. It will be inaugurated by state chief minister V S Achu-thanandan. Addressing the media here on Tuesday, N A Moha-mmed Kutty, managing director of the group, said the CFS comes against the backdrop of Kochi’s emergence as a major international maritime hub with Vallarpadam International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT), which is on the anvil.

The group is in an advanced stage of setting up a special econ-omic zone (SEZ) exclusively for the services sector.

Full story

Petronet to set up 1000 MW power plant at Kochi. Good back up for
power hungry booming Kochi.

India Infoline News Service / Mumbai Nov 14, 2007 09:21

Petronet LNG plans second gas based power plant of 1,000 MW at its proposed Kochi LNG terminal. News Source

Purva may tie up with Oberoi for its five star projects in Kochi.

Puravankara to invest Rs 1,000 cr in South India

2007-11-14 08:30:33 Source : Business Line

“The hotels will have about 150-350 rooms each. Initially, we plan to
develop hotels in Kochi, Chennai, Coimbatore, Bangalore and
Hyderabad. Full story