Enviable record in kick-starting growth

To a large extent Kerala owes its economic buoyancy to the Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation, which built infrastructure in crucial sectors.

WOOING industry is something every State in India does these days - with widely varied results. Kerala has always had to carry an additional baggage, which is popular perception rather than reality, about its environment for doing business - a legacy of labour militancy in an earlier era.

But among the State's public sector units, the clear leader when it comes to performance as well as perception is KINFRA - the Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation. Twelve years after it was created, KINFRA has an enviable record in kick-starting growth, particularly in industry sectors where the State has an edge by way of natural or human resources.

This month sees its 16th industrial park - the theme-based KINFRA Small Industries Park (K-SIP) - go on stream in Kasaragod, strategically situated close to the development activities centred around Mangalore, across the border in Karnataka. Over 20 small industries have already signed up to set up shop within the 50-acre (20-hectare) park.

In February, Chief Minister Oomen Chandy inaugurated the first phase (costing Rs. 25 crores) of a Food Processing Park near Adoor in Pathanamthitta district. Towards the end of March, construction of the Rs.40-crore Biotechnology Park will begin in Kalamassery, Kochi, which looks set to put the State on the map in this emerging high-tech niche.

With a Herbal Park in the hilly Wayanad district; an Apparel Park on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram; a Sea Food complex (jointly with the Marine Products Export Development Authority, MPEDA) in the coastal Alappuzha district; a Rubber Park near Kottayam (with the Rubber Board) and a high-tech Electronics Park in Kochi, in addition to small industrial parks in most districts of the State, KINFRA has slowly changed the industrial map of Kerala. And whether it is apparels or food processing; rubber or seafood, the State has been a pioneer in the "park" concept of collective value creation.

As specialists have noted, it has done so, in a low-key, business-like way that is earning it accolades for shrewd techno-commercial practices. Indeed, KINFRA's Managing Director, Dr G.C. Gopala Pillai, who has headed the corporation since its inception, has just been honoured with the lifetime achievement award of the National Institute of Personnel Management - a tribute to his stewardship that has made this Rs.4,000-crore corporation the flagship of Kerala's industrial fleet as it ventures into the high seas of global commerce.

The entertainment business today finds its cutting edge at the confluence of two dominant technologies: Information Technology and Communication. For a State like Kerala, whose film industry has given India some memorable cinematic products, it makes sense to complement the art with the technical craft that is necessary to deliver successful films in today's more demanding business environment.

This is the sound economic sense that persuaded KINFRA to create an industrial infrastructure, to prepare for a new `ICE Age' - a combination of Information, Communication and Entertainment - even while "doing what comes naturally" to the artistic Malayalee psyche. The result is what is being called `India's first infotainment industrial park'... a consortium of service providers in the film, video and animation industries, all functioning within one complex - with the benefits of cross-pollinating skills and synergies.

Even those who have routinely experienced Kerala's bountiful natural resources will be unprepared for the first look at the lush green and undulating 75 acres (30 ha) of the KINFRA Film and Video Park, at Kazhakuttam on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram, which provide a breathtaking background for the high-tech and creative work that is already being carried out within. Individual units tucked away on wooded slopes that slide down to a small lake formed to conserve all the harvested rainwater of the campus; a dominant hillock with the central Park Centre facilities that include what will be Kerala's first digital preview theatre; and down in the valley a large and aesthetically designed open-air amphitheatre... the park has been planned to provide the serene creative environment which alone can exploit the cutting-edge technology tools that will soon become available. "The decision to choose this location was the wisest thing I have ever done," said Malayalam matinee idol Mohanlal, who was one of the first to sign up and invest in the park - his digital sound recording studio is fast nearing completion.

The facility that London-based film-maker Murali Nair (who shot into fame in 1999 when his feature film Marana Simhasanam took the prestigious Golden Camera award at the Cannes Film Festival) is as earthy as his themes: he has used indigenous materials to create the unique shell that will soon house his own digital studio. And another facility that is expected to reach fruition this year is the animation and multimedia school that D.C. Ravi (of DC Books fame) is setting up.

For the park's first investor, it has been `business as usual' for over two years now. The Chennai-based Prasad Film Labs, part of Asia's largest service provider for the film industry, set up its newest film processing unit in the FV Park to cater to the Malayalam film industry: Today the state-of-the-art plant runs double shifts to cope with the films that flow from Kerala's creative film-makers. The park's "anchor" tenant has quietly innovated in other, socially meaningful, ways. "All the young people we employ here are drawn from nearby areas," said S. Ponnaiah, the chief technician and plant-in-charge. Ponnaiyetan, as he is affectionately known to dozens of directors and cinematographers who entrust their work to him in cans of raw film and depend on his skills to cover the blemishes and create a compelling positive, has personally groomed raw recruits in the art and science of cinematic processing and equipped them with skills that are now in big demand.

The park's latest and most canny initiative is the creation of an "Animation Zone" to cater exclusively to the burgeoning outsourced animation and digital film industry. "Everybody has been talking about the need to create the infrastructure to tap India's potential as a leading global destination for the creation of 2D and 3D animation products for television and cinema," said A.S. Suresh Babu, the FV Park's managing director. "We decided to go ahead and commit ourselves to the creation of an exclusive facility for the animation industry - and expect that the construction phase will be over this year," he said. Babu's vision goes beyond populating real estate: the park expects to set up an internationally recognised animation school so that the trained talents required to fuel the creative work in the animation zone will be available right next door. A detailed feasibility plan has been approved and the park is talking to a short list of partners to deliver the academic muscle for the school by the third quarter of 2005.

It is not by accident that KINFRA chose Thiruvananthapuram as the location for the Film and Video Park. A quick look at a map of the region shows that the city is ideally positioned to serve as a hub for the creative cinematic activities in countries such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Mauritius. Colombo is just half an hour's flying away; Singapore another emerging hub for digital cinema, is fours hours away - and there are obvious possibilities for mutually beneficial synergies.

As entertainment increasingly rides a global technology wave, the FV Park has put up a virtual board that says: "Step right in! We have what it takes to make IT happen." And indications are that, the infotainment industry may soon see in the invitation an offer they cannot refuse.

Clearly, the time had come to shed that old colonial mantra: divide and rule. And we are not talking geopolitics, but food processing. Its small geographical spread notwithstanding, Kerala is next only to Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu when it comes to the number of licensed food processing units. But, with the overwhelming majority of these units being unorganised, the real impact of the State's thrust in the business of preserving, packaging and exporting food was minuscule.

It was this reality that challenged KINFRA when it took a beady look at Kerala's food processing facts of life. Keralites consumed 248 grams of milk a day - higher than the national average of 210 gm. No less than 18 private dairies and the Anand-style units under the Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing (MILMA) banner make Kerala a milkman's dream State. It has pioneered the processing of naadan or ethnic snack food based on the Kerala banana (ethakkaya), jackfruit and tapioca and the `hot chips' kiosk seems slated to becoming a nationwide presence, just as the idli-masala dosa outlets which seeped into the Indian psyche a generation ago. The 600-km coastline makes the State a major producer of fishery products - yet 22 per cent of the national output is rather less than the real potential. Spices fared better: Kochi alone served as a gateway for 70 per cent of global needs. Keralites consume a lot of coconut - about 57 per cent of the output - but what is exported does not tap the full gamut of possibilities.

This was the rationale for KINFRA to create an Agency for Development of Food Processing Industries in Kerala (ADFIK) in 2004 and to set about creating a clearly recognisable Kerala brand for its food products.

Says ADFIK Managing Director S. Ramnath: " In India, the level of food processing is currently very low compared with countries such as China and the Philippines; but there is a slow but definite trend towards processed foods. In Kerala, where a large population is exposed to the latest technologies in processing and packaging food products, the demand for ready-to-eat convenient foods is increasing." That is one reason, Ramnath says, why KINFRA has tied up with the Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL), Mysore, to set up a Food Business Incubation Centre to assist entrepreneurs in assimilating the latest new technologies. "The centre will be equipped with pilot production facilities in fermentation, canning and bottling lines, as well as aseptic processing plants to help entrepreneurs test the viability of their projects for a given period at minimal, initial investment." ADFIK, on its part, will provide the necessary guidelines for the marketing of the products.

The incubation centre is coming up within the nation's first Food Processing Park - at Kakkancherry in Malappuram district and close to the international airport at Kozhikode. On 60 acres (24 ha) of prime land, the park includes common facilities such as state-of-the-art quality control labs and a food incubation centre. Major investors functioning within the park include Foster Foods, Parrison Foods, Rime Rich Foods, Kelpam, Silver Packs, Falcon Foods, Merry-Time Cream Foods, Kunjamma Foods, Saj Agro Food Industries, Sea Land Marines and Sara Spices.

Since then KINFRA has expanded to create other food processing parks, in Mazhuvannur in Ernakulam district; in Kalpetta in Wayanad district, and in Adoor in Pathanamthitta district. It also created a seafood park at Aroor in Alappuzha district.

The Central Food Technology and Research Institute (CFTRI) will provide support for the creation of quality control labs and also help KINFRA in its future thrust areas: spice extracts, oleoresins, curry powder, natural colours and flavours, meat processing, malted foods, high fructose syrup from cassava, ready-to-eat snacks, pineapple and mango products, canned/dried fruits and vegetables, and dairy products.It all sounds mouth-watering. But KINFRA and ADFIK hope it will fill the wallets of the State and the entrepreneurs who even now are putting the Kerala brand on the supermarket shelves world wide.