Smartcity Kochi CEO Joseph resigns due to personal reasons

Smartcity Kochi's CEO Giji Joseph has resigned from the company due to 'personal reasons'.
Confirming his resignation, IT secretary P H Kurian said Joseph has put in his papers and the same has been accepted.
Smartcity Kochi is an IT Special Economic Zone under construction in Kochi.
"The meeting of the Board of Directors held on June 24 decided to accept my resignation. The board members asked me to continue till the inauguration of the first IT complex, which is 95 per cent completed.
"But I requested the board to relieve me at the earliest owing to personal reasons, and the board accepted", Joseph said in a statement.

Joseph, who has resigned citing 'personal reasons', told PTI that he wanted to go back to the field of technology.

Talks are on with few companies in the US and Kochi, he added.
Expressing happiness that he could breathe life into the Smartcity project, which had remained in limbo for about eight years, he said, "When I started, all we had was a barren patch of land which did not even have connectivity to the main road".
The project did not have SEZ approval or environmental clearance. In a record 24 months, a lead platinum building of 6.5 lakh square feet was developed along with adjacent campus infrastructure such as the 1st bridge, internal roads of 3.7 km, power receiving and distribution system, water receiving and distribution system, among others.

"Developing campus infrastructure was critical to attract multinationals as our vision is to attract those companies to Kochi," he said.
The building, which is 95 per cent complete, is likely to be inaugurated in July or August with several dignitaries expected from Gulf nations.
Smartcity Kochi Infrastructure is a joint venture company formed to develop the Kochi Smartcity project.
The Kerala government and TECOM Investments, a subsidiary of Dubai Holding, are the main investors of the company.
The project envisions minimum 8.8 million square feet of built up space, out of which at least 6.21 million square feet will be specifically for IT/ITES/allied services. The project is expected to create over 90,000 direct jobs.

Smartcity Kochi is one of the first two projects of the Smartcity's vision to build a large network of knowledge-based industry townships across the world.