BENGALURU: As the raging pandemic compelled techies to shift to their native Tier II and III cities in Karnataka, perceptions are changing regarding scope of IT clusters outside Bengaluru.
Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM) has set an ambitious target of getting 5 lakh tech professionals to work from such potential tech clusters in the next four years as the government plans to attract investment and create jobs in other cities and towns.
KDEM, which has been set up to bridge the gap between industry and the government, is focusing on development of tech clusters in Mysuru, Mangaluru and Hubballi clusters, including Belagavi and neighbouring districts.
"Our goal is to make sure that around five lakh professionals work from three emerging clusters by 2026. Now, around 80,000 professionals work from those clusters," Karnataka Digital Economy Mission chairman BV Naidu told The New Indian Express.
Information Technology (IT) industries are mostly based in Bengaluru and less than two per cent of the state’s software export comes from other clusters. To boost industries in these clusters, Karnataka Digital Economy Mission has emphasised on creating co-working spaces and strengthening IT infrastructure as part of 'Beyond Bengaluru' initiatives.
However, there are many challenges. "The number one challenge is perception itself. Unfortunately, the industry always thinks that the tech industry can grow in larger cities. That is a perception problem," Naidu added.The prevailing Covid-19 pandemic, however, is gradually altering the perception.
"Around 40 per cent of the people in Bengaluru went off to their native places. Then people realised the same thing can be handled by people from Mangaluru, Mysuru or from Hubballi and the perception, to some extent, started changing for the larger companies," he said.
With adequate talent in those clusters, the Karnataka Digital Economy Mission has taken an initiative of bridging engineering students in and around those clusters with the corporate which led to 4,000 to 5,000 student employment opportunities in the last four to five months, he said.
Focus of 3 clusters
While the Mysuru cluster will focus on cybersecurity, Mangaluru will focus on all the FinTech back-end operations, and Hubballi's - which includes Belagavi - will focus on Agri tech and Edutech. "We are very happy that companies like IBM started operations in Mysuru. An artificial intelligence company has come there and also one more Very Large-Scale Integration design services company will also come up," he added.