Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 25 (IANS): Despite having a promising start by launching the first Technopark in the country in 1990, Kerala lags behind neighbouring states in IT exports. Over a quarter of a century later, the figure stands at Rs 12,000 crore for FY 2016-17.

There are close to one lakh IT professionals working in nine million square feet space at Technopark, Infopark campus in Kochi and other smaller parks, according to a top IT officials in the state on Wednesday.

However, in spite of the state's slow progress, Department of Information Technology Secretary M. Sivasankar is confident that things are going to change.

In the remaining three and a half years of the present Left government, a record new one lakh direct IT jobs would be created, he said.

"Kerala IT continues to have the cost and 'congestion' advantage compared to other states and with every direct IT job that's created, there will be close to three indirect jobs too," said Sivasankar.

"At the 400 acre Technocity campus near here, various companies including TCS have started to build their own campus."

President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday will lay the foundation stone for the first IT building owned by the Kerala government at Technocity, which will have a built-up area of two lakh sqft and is expected to be completed by 2019.

Kerala IT Parks CEO, Hrishikesh Nair, said that Technocity is not just planned as another IT park which provides basic IT infrastructure for IT or ITES companies but as a Centre of Excellence for frontier technologies that will encourage research and development in upcoming technologies.

"The IT Policy thrusts on developing Trivandrum, Kochi and Kozhikode as the three main IT hubs of Kerala wherein technological development will be envisaged in the areas of cyber security, block chain, fintech and artificial intelligence from here while Kochi will focus on Internet of Things (IoT) and the Kozhikode Cyberpark on mobile-based technologies," said Nair.