THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Hrishikesh Nair stepped down as the chief executive officer of Kerala IT Parks after a stint of over 6 years. The government has made Sasi PM as the new chief executive. He is the director of International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS) and would hold the additional charge.
Hrishikesh who stepped down on Monday, will stay for a couple of days to help the new CEO. He told Express that he was returning to USA to take up an IT job. Hrishikesh was appointed CEO of Infopark Kochi by the UDF government in July 2013. When the LDF government came he was made the CEO of all the IT parks (re-branded as Kerala IT Parks). The government later gave him a six-month extension in July.
“I have completed and delivered all assignments for the government. All the three IT parks in the state have registered operational profit,” said Hrishikesh. During his term, phase-2 of Infopark, Technocity and phase-3 of Technopark became functional. Major companies such as Nissan, Terranet, Way.com, and co-developers such as World Trade Centre, Lulu, Brigade and Taurus started their buildings in IT parks during this period.
A controversy erupted during his tenure when Nissan which is building its Global Digital Hub complained of slow progress in project clearance and lack of social infrastructure. Hrishikesh said the problems raised by Nissan were beyond the level of an IT Park CEO and government had given high priority to resolve the issues.